Chapter 256
Splash!
A wave laced with thin ice surged up.
With a frigid crash, it slammed into the side of the massive whaling ship, the Pelicania.
The sailing vessel, which had overcome countless hardships and raging storms, tilted hard.
Icy seawater splashed all the way onto the stern deck.
Captain Felipe, suddenly drenched from head to toe, spun the wheel and shouted,
“Port side! Full stroke!”
“Full stroke!”
The captain’s order was relayed in an instant.
From the boatswain’s mouth, it reached the oar room below deck.
The oarsmen’s backs rippled like waves.
The seasoned captain turned the wheel with practiced ease.
The massive hull slowly leaned to port.
The rowing commands in the oar room shifted according to the angle of the tilt.
“Port side! Hold your oars, one stroke every four breaths! Starboard side! Full speed, one stroke per breath!”
“Hoo! Ha!”
The oarsmen’s breathing fell into a single rhythm.
But the rhythm of their rowing was different.
The port-side oarsmen pulled once every four breaths.
The starboard-side oarsmen pulled once per breath.
The difference in stroke on either side made the ship’s movement even more dramatic.
Whoooosh!
The bow twisted sharply to the left like an eel thrashing through the water.
The massive hull sliced through the waves in an instant, executing an emergency turn to port.
The moment the Pelicania swerved hard to the left—
Muscular shapes burst from the sea one after another like dolphins.
But they were not dolphins.
Splash! Slap! Crash!
“Gwaaah!”
“We missed!”
Bodies gleaming wet with seawater.
Below them, lower halves covered in scales and fins that flashed brilliantly in the light.
They were mermaids.
In that brief instant as they leaped above the water,
several mermaids glared at the Pelicania, trembling with rage.
Their eyes were full of frustration over an attack that should have landed cleanly but had gone wide.
But they did not give up so easily.
No, the assault had only just begun.
“Sisters! Do not let the intruders escape!”
“We protect our seas!”
“Break the keel in one strike!”
A full five hundred mermaids charged at the Pelicania.
From the deep sea, they beat their fins with all their might.
Relying on that overwhelming muscle power, they shot upward at terrifying speed.
Their goal was the underside of the Pelicania.
Boom! Thud! Crash!
Though the Pelicania was making sharp, agile evasive maneuvers, it could not avoid every one of the mermaids’ relentless attacks.
Each impact made the hull shudder.
The bottom of the ship let out ominous groans.
Captain Felipe’s face grew pale.
Lloyd’s expression turned even more urgent.
“No, Captain!”
The moment the full-scale assault by the mermaid legion began,
Lloyd was rattled by the sudden killing intent in the air.
He almost toppled from the bowsprit into the sea.
“The song! You told me to sing! You told me to pour sincerity and devotion into it!”
The deck rocked violently from the abrupt turns and the mermaids slamming into the hull.
Crawling across it, Lloyd made it back to the captain and shouted in protest.
Honestly, he was truly, genuinely aggrieved.
‘You said it would work! You told me to sing with sincerity and devotion!’
So he had done exactly that.
He had poured his heart into it.
In his own way, he had been serious, warm, and earnest, giving it everything he had.
That he wanted to save the Count and Countess, Julian, and everyone else.
That he wanted to change their fate.
So please, help us just a little.
That they were not enemies.
That they had not come to invade.
He had sung with the feeling of reaching out a hand, his heart full of sincerity.
“But why! Why did things turn out like this?!”
Lloyd shouted with all the heartfelt injustice in his soul.
Captain Felipe whipped his head around and glared at him.
“No! I told you to sing, not do… whatever that was!”
While frantically turning the wheel, he yelled back with an expression full of disbelief.
“Good heavens! You really don’t know why this happened? I told you to sing! With sincerity and devotion!”
“That’s what I did! I sang!”
“……That was singing?”
The captain tilted his head as if he genuinely could not believe what he was hearing.
His gaze was so grave, so deeply serious, that Lloyd almost burst into tears on the spot.
And Captain Felipe’s fact-based violence continued.
“So instead of making that bizarre racket that makes a person’s ears bleed just from hearing it, you should’ve sung a normal song! A song! Why did you have to try something that strange? Tsk!”
“……”
“It’s not too late. Why don’t you try singing properly now?”
“……”
“No, you! Why do you keep crying instead of answering?!”
“……”
Wouldn’t anyone cry in this situation?
He was getting verbally beaten so hard it felt like every bone in his body was being shattered in real time.
Lloyd furiously wiped at the corners of his eyes.
Then he changed the subject.
“……Tsk! I’m not singing! I’ll have to use another method, so let’s just escape like this!”
For now, that seemed like the best course.
The captain’s suggestion of trying to win over the mermaids through song—
that method seemed completely dead.
No, more than that, now that he had raised the mermaids’ hostility to the limit, escaping first seemed like the better option.
‘After that, I’ll look for another method. And if there really, truly isn’t any other way, then I’ll have to call Yong Yong and invade the Mermaid Kingdom or something.’
If no method worked.
If, in the end, he could not befriend the mermaids.
Then he might have to consider solving things through overwhelming force.
‘But that’s the last resort. For now, escaping safely comes first.’
Lloyd anxiously assessed the situation.
It was not looking good.
Thud! Boom! Crash!
Dull impacts rose from the underside of the ship without pause.
The mermaids were clearly trying to smash holes through the bottom.
Each collision made the great whaling ship tremble.
‘This is bad.’
Lloyd’s face darkened.
The situation really was dire.
And it looked like it was only going to get worse.
‘No matter how large a whaling ship is, there has to be a limit to how long it can hold out like this.’
This sailing vessel had originally been built specifically to hunt Emperor Whales.
To tow away the corpse of a several-hundred-ton Emperor Whale and escape from whale pods, it had been outfitted with a huge number of oars in addition to sails.
Thanks to that, despite its size, it could display explosive maneuverability, at least for brief periods.
On top of that, it was incomparably sturdier than any ordinary ship.
An Emperor Whale, once harpooned, would struggle and thrash in resistance.
The ship had to endure the rampage and counterattacks of that colossal mass.
‘But this opponent is all wrong.’
These were mermaids.
The universally acknowledged apex predators of the underwater ecosystem.
Even Emperor Whales avoided them.
Wasn’t that what the mermaid legion was?
‘They’re insanely strong, right? Just in pure muscle power, they’re supposed to be on par with top-tier Orc warriors. If hundreds of them keep charging like this… if we keep taking a one-sided beating, eventually the bottom of the ship will give out.’
Of course, even if the bottom of the ship was breached, it could hold on for a while.
This was a vessel built from the beginning to withstand the Emperor Whale’s counterattacks.
Even if a few holes opened and seawater began pouring in, the ship had been designed so that the whole thing would not immediately sink.
‘But what if the keel breaks by bad luck?’
The keel was the ship’s spine.
If that broke, it was over.
Flooding barriers or not, it would just be a one-way ticket to the bottom.
The problem was that those mermaids were more than strong enough to snap the keel.
‘Right now, we’re barely avoiding direct hits to the keel thanks to these insane maneuvers, but there’s no guarantee that luck will hold forever.’
Lloyd judged the situation coldly.
That was how bad things were.
‘And we barely have any way to counterattack.’
They could counterattack.
He could fire [Volcanic Eruption] into the sea with Bangul.
He could have Hamang suck up seawater and spit it out all at once to create a whirlpool.
At the very least, he or Javier could launch [Detonation] into the water.
‘But that’s dangerous.’
Lloyd shook his head.
If they acted carelessly, it would not be their side in danger, but the mermaids.
‘We need their help. But what if, by accident, a mermaid gets hurt in a counterattack? Then it’s over. Completely over.’
From that point on, they would become true mortal enemies.
Persuasion, requests, all of it would vanish in vain like cup noodles spilled across the floor of a convenience store.
‘That leaves only one method.’
In the end, Lloyd came to a conclusion.
He shouted to the captain.
“Captain! At this rate, how much longer can we hold out?”
“Hold out in what sense?”
“I mean how long we can hold out without sinking!”
“If luck is good, all day!”
“If luck is bad?”
“One second!”
“……”
In other words, it all came down to luck.
Lloyd steadied himself and said,
“Then I’ll try negotiating with them!”
“Negotiating? In this situation?”
“Yes. I don’t expect it to work, though!”
“You mean to buy time?”
“If they’re listening to me, then maybe their attacks will ease up a little, right? So once I start negotiating, you know what to do, right?”
“Understood. Instead of just dodging, we’ll focus on getting out of this area first.”
Getting out of this area was the priority.
Once they did, the icebergs and drifting floes scattered around would thin out.
Then the ship would be able to move more freely, without the danger of crashing or running aground.
The odds of escaping quickly and safely would go up.
As expected, the veteran Captain Felipe grasped Lloyd’s intention immediately and nodded.
A satisfied smile rose to Lloyd’s lips.
‘Good. Let’s do this.’
He loosened the muscles around his lips and tongue, then hurried down from the stern deck.
Leaning out over the stern rail, he shouted toward the waters below.
“Hey! Mermaid ladies! There’s actually something I’m curious about!”
Lloyd’s voice slipped through the crashing waves.
It slid straight into the ears of several mermaids who were rushing upward to ram the bottom of the ship.
And he kept shouting.
“I fully understand that I upset you ladies by singing a bizarre and horrifying song! So I’m curious! What do I have to do for you ladies to forgive me?!”
Forgive me…! Forgive me…! Forgive me…!
His voice rang farther, deeper, and louder.
At last, all the mermaids’ attacks stopped—
if only for a moment.
Every gaze turned toward the surface.
Every eye locked onto Lloyd, who was leaning out over the rail.
And then they became furious.
“It’s him!”
“That’s right! He’s the human who sang earlier!”
“That wasn’t a song! It was a sonic curse!”
“Sister, my eardrums are still bleeding!”
The eyes of every mermaid in the area burned with fury.
That human had to be caught.
That human had to be finished off.
They had to sew his mouth shut so he could never again pollute the sea with filthy songs and noise.
With that blazing rage and sense of justice(?), the mermaid legion steeled themselves once more.
Then they launched an even fiercer barrage.
Whoosh—!
“……Ugh!”
A mermaid suddenly surged upward and threw a punch.
The sheer ferocity of it sent Lloyd stumbling backward.
But it was already too late.
‘Damn!’
The fist came too fast.
He could see the enormous muscles packed into the forearm and shoulder behind it.
He could clearly see the blazing eyes aimed at him.
It was unmistakably a warrior’s gaze.
‘She’s trying to kill me!’
But he could not react.
The speed and power were far beyond what he had expected.
That fist was already flying upward—
while his own attempt to fall backward and dodge felt laughably slow.
The moment he realized that, he knew for certain.
‘I’m getting hit.’
What would happen if that connected?
At the very least, wouldn’t his jaw shatter?
‘If I’m unlucky, I might have to live on porridge for the rest of my life.’
He absolutely did not want that.
But there was no time to do anything else.
All he could do in that instant was draw Mana from his Mana Heart.
At best, he could amplify it with the [Asrahan Heart Technique].
That was it—raise the slightest shred of defense so his jaw would not explode.
‘Ugh, please!’
Please don’t let it hurt.
He prayed and squeezed his eyes shut.
And then—
Thud!
A heavy impact exploded right below his jaw.
Startled, he opened his eyes.
Only then did he see it.
‘Javier?’
At some point, Javier had moved to stand right beside him.
The man had one hand outstretched.
He was blocking the mermaid’s rising punch with his palm.
“Hup!”
The mermaid’s eyes widened when her fist was stopped.
She twisted her whole body at once.
To retreat?
No.
Whoosh!
A muscular tail, thicker than a log, whipped toward them.
It looked like even grazing it would be enough to shatter every bone in a person’s body.
That was how monstrous the force behind it was.
But apparently, Javier did not see it that way.
“It’s dangerous. Please step back.”
He extended his other hand.
He shoved Lloyd firmly backward.
Then he drove his shoulder forward.
Javier’s shoulder and the mermaid’s tail collided.
The mermaid was sent flying.
Thwack!
“Keh-heup?!”
With a choked gasp, the heavily muscled mermaid was blasted dozens of meters away before crashing back into the waves. Apparently not seriously injured, she immediately vanished beneath the surface.
Only then did Javier turn back to Lloyd.
“Are you alright?”
“……Uh, yeah.”
Lloyd, who had landed on his backside, nodded blankly.
As he absentmindedly rubbed his lower jaw, a belated chill ran down his spine.
That had almost been a catastrophe.
If Javier had not stepped in, he might have been seriously hurt.
‘Damn.’
Lloyd shuddered.
He had tried to buy time by negotiating.
Even that had failed.
‘I have to figure something out somehow.’
Otherwise, this ship might actually sink.
Of course, he and Javier could probably escape on Ggoming or something, but Captain Felipe and the rest of the crew would suffer heavy losses.
‘I don’t want that.’
He shook his head hard.
He desperately searched for a way out.
But even in that short span of time, the situation kept getting worse.
Kwaaang! Creak, Kwa-kwang! Crunch!
Slowly, little by little, but surely.
Each time the hull was struck, new sounds began to mix in with the impacts—
the grinding, twisting noise of strained timbers.
“It seems the hull is warping from the impacts.”
Even Javier felt uneasy.
If this continued, things were going to turn very bad.
‘If the ship truly begins to sink, I must save Lloyd-nim first.’
No matter what happened, Lloyd-nim had to be protected.
Even if that person was not the real Lloyd.
He had already become the pillar supporting the family.
That fake was more important than the real one.
So I will protect him.
No matter what happens.
No matter what absurdity I have to face.
I will protect him. I will guard him.’
The silver-haired knight hardened his resolve.
But at that very moment—
“Sigh. Since it’s come to this, we have no choice. Javier? We’re going to do a little fishing.”
“Huh? Fishing?”
At Lloyd’s words, Javier tilted his head.
Fishing, at a time like this?
What could that possibly mean?
And besides, without bait, how were they supposed to fish?
A moment later, the silver-haired knight had no choice but to witness it.
Lloyd diligently hauling up a rope.
The shameless grin spreading across Lloyd’s lips.
And the utterly absurd proposal he tossed out so casually.
“You be the bait. You’re a Grand Master, so you won’t die even if you fall into freezing water, right?”