No More Pain For This Villain.

Chapter 335  A Corpse

"And now I'm not sure if I want to show you the other thing or not," he muttered.

"Another thing? You got something more?" I asked.

"Yep, I did, but now I'm not going to show you that one at all," Alver said. He seemed to forgive me for what I did to the demon corpse way too easily because if I were in his shoes, I would've done way worse to someone who just puffed a million gold coins.

"Don't think I forgive you for the corpse, though. I'll make sure you give me some great idea to make that money back tenfold," he added, as if reading my mind.

"Ha, I'll do that, but don't go around just buying corpses like these. They're useless," I said, pointing at the coffin box.

"You say that, but I am sure the Royal Palace isn't stupid to just hoard thousands of these if they weren't important." He threw in immediately as he slid the coffin back into the spatial rift.

From his point of view, it's valid, but I know that it's still useless. As for why the Royal Palace might be taking these in, it could be to prevent people from getting scared and to keep the peace, I guess. "From what I think, it's because they don't want people to get scared—keep the peace," I added. I do think a lot of people are still not aware of the intensity of the demon attacks because the Royal Palace is trying to keep the situation under control.

Alver didn't reply but just stared at me. "Maybe."

"Anyways, tell me what was the other thing," I asked.

Alver looked at me from top to bottom and shook his head. "Nah, don't believe you at all," he said.

"I won't even touch that thing, is that fine?" I added. "How much did you spend on this 'thing,' though?" I questioned.

"Hmm, nothing," he said as he stretched his hand and reached inside the spatial rift. "This thing was sent to me from the shores of Reva Kingdom. Remember the town where we met? Prowler's Cove harbor? I got a letter that one of the people who worked for me there found a weird 'corpse' on the shore and thought that it was one of the same creatures that were attacking in Eshmera." He slowly pulled a huge box made out of glass and placed it on the desk.

"He sent it to me through a teleporter. I was going to carry this to auction in a few days alongside the first one." He slowly put a barrier around the glass, still not believing that I wouldn't touch it. "This was free if I don't add the commission of that guy."

He kept speaking as I leaned forward. There was a frosty mist that blurred the glass. I could make out the silhouette to be humanoid at least.

I cladded my hand in mana and tore through the barrier, sweeping my palm across the surface of the glass box. Inside was the pale corpse—scaly, with big eyes and gills around the neck, weirdly long hands and claws, and one half of the torso seemed like it was ripped apart, so no legs, I guess.

'HOLY SHIT!' But before I could make sense of what kind of demon it was, Blaze jumped on my shoulder.

What happened? But without responding, he just wide-eyed stared at the glass box.

"Your cat is tweaking," Alver said.

What happened, Smokeball?

'It's a mermaid,' he replied in my mind. I felt myself grab the glass immediately.

The ones that you told me live under the ocean? I asked.

'Yes... what kind of question is that?' Blaze responded.

From the Maritime Aquarius Dynasty?

'Don't know about that, as there are a few more smaller kingdoms too.'

Fuck. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"You fine?" Alver asked as he slowly peeled my palm from the glass. "You seem sick," he added.

Sick? I'm not sick... I'm tired. I'm fucking tired of things that don't make sense popping out of nowhere around me. I'm sick of things just being thrown at me and me being expected to make sense of them... fuck it.

I calmed myself down and squatted. I pulled a paper roll out of the desk—it was a map—and said, "Do you know where that man found this thing?" I asked Alver. I knew it wasn't likely he'd keep that much detail about such things.

"Yeah," Alver took the quill from me and marked a spot. "It's not a very detailed map, so I can just point out, but he seemed to find these near the edge of Prowler's Cove Harbor, right under his boat a few days back. It was in the middle of the night, and since the currents were not that fast, I can't say from which direction this floated."

I took the pen from him and stared at the map for a few seconds.

"What are those circles on the map, dude?" Alver asked, noticing the circles I'd made to mark Crooked Islands, the Maritime Aquarius Dynasty, and the Demon Continent.

"Nothing," I replied, focusing.

'What are you trying to get?' asked Blaze.

I'm trying to understand why this corpse wasn't on Grav Kingdom's shoreline, since it's the closest one to the Maritime Aquarius Dynasty according to you. I know for a fact that there are no sea currents that go in that direction, and then there are those Tritonic Surges made because of Neptune's insignia that hide Crooked Islands too. So, it being on Reva Kingdom's shoreline should be impossible.

I drew a line from Prowler's Cove to Crooked Islands. Smokeball, is there any small submerged mermaid kingdom under these waters?

"Nope," replied Blaze immediately.

"Uh... why do you look so tense, dude?" Alver asked.

The only logical explanation is that this mermaid, like the one in the glass box, was trying to go to either Reva Kingdom or Crooked Islands.

But isn't that still stupid? Who'd travel through a raging storm in any condition at all? Wait, they travel under the water and can breathe, so it's not hard. But then why did it die?

We certainly don't know if mermaids know about Crooked Islands or not, and why they are still hiding from the world.

Because Blaze says that there was a time everyone used to live together.

Why?