PBGS 20

chapter 20

She had to wander around, and couldn’t even use her medicine properly…

Eden tilted his head and asked,

“Didn’t you know? Soyna isn’t the type to forget something like that. It’s about a box this size.”

“A box like that… in our house?”

Wait—a box?

“Rinka, if you ever sell this house one day, you must dig up the yard first. There’s a box buried under that dead tree. If you don’t take it with you, I’ll become a ghost and won’t be able to close my eyes. Promise me!”

“Stop saying weird things and just take your medicine.”

“Promise me?”

“Ugh, seriously!”

The only box she knew of was that one.

“Could it be… the one buried in the yard?”

“The yard?”

He repeated, as though he had never heard of it before. Rinka then told him about her mother’s final words, words that had sounded like a will.

That if anything ever happened, she should dig it up from the yard and leave with it.

“Then it must be that. Soyna always liked doing things in riddles.”

“But all this time, my mom suffered so much because we had no money…”

“Even if there had been money, it would’ve been the same. If there had been any way to cure her illness, I would have found it.”

He explained that it had been incurable.

That in fact, Soyna had only managed to live as long as she did because she had given birth to Rinka.

Rinka stared for a long time at the face of the “father” who was telling her this.

The father she never thought she would ever face in her lifetime.

The merman who had created her.

When she fell silent, Eden too stopped speaking, as if he’d been trying to comfort her but decided to end it there.

A brief silence fell between them, yet strangely, it didn’t feel awkward at all.

Was this what blood ties were?

Or was it because he was the one who could resolve the long-standing torment of her being only half-whole?

It was nice to reminisce about her mother, but there were far more questions Rinka needed to ask.

“Um, I have something else I want to ask.”

At her words, Eden straightened up, his expression as though he had been waiting for this moment.

“If it’s something I can answer, I’ll tell you. Even the things I should have taught you long ago.”

Ananta stood before the mansion with no entrance.

Lavanto.

Now, it had become the gathering place for the pirates of the western seas, but originally, this island had been a prison for beings that were not human.

From this very mansion stretched dozens—perhaps hundreds—of prisons that filled the entire island.

The first pirates who set foot here had hunted those monsters, and the fortress itself had voluntarily yielded a portion of its land to humans before sinking into a long slumber.

Most pirates knew nothing of this hidden history, but Ananta knew—he had seen it in the records passed down from his family since the beginning.

And there was one presence, whose identity had never been revealed throughout all that time.

The master of Lavanto.

One who could freely command mist and conjure thousands of prisons.

The mansion where he lived was, as always, shrouded in mist.

The difference today was—

“A light is on.”

For decades, not only had no light ever shone, the mist had never even parted. And yet right now, a light flickered inside… immediately after Rinka Maribel had disappeared into the mist.

“Does that mean… he’s welcomed her as a guest?”

Ananta’s fingers absently rubbed the earring at his ear.

If Rinka broke the necklace he had given her, the signal would reach his earring at once, activating the spell that would transport him straight to her side.

But there had been no signal. Which meant the danger was not that severe.

Still, Ananta stared at the window glowing faintly in the distance, torn with indecision.

Should he wait longer?

Or should he force his way in?

His thoughts drifted as his fingers traced the earring again.

Golden hair brushing her shoulders, a pale, graceful nape, rounded shoulders…

When he lowered his gaze, he remembered the sun-like eyes glinting between lashes of gold.

Every time she blinked, shadows would appear and vanish, and he often had to suppress the impulse to seize her chin.

And now, he didn’t even know if those eyes were closed or open.

That thought made it nearly impossible to think rationally.

A woman he had only known for a few short weeks…

Ananta closed his eyes tightly and exhaled a long breath.

But what did it matter?

Had his life ever gone the way he wanted? Whatever impulses he felt, whatever thoughts he had, he was never in a position to take responsibility for them.

Even the sailors weren’t his responsibility. He had only given them passage.

But…

“With Rinka, I signed a contract. One I had, but never once intended to use.”

And so, the golden-haired woman—Rinka Maribel—was his sole responsibility.

Responsibility.

Now that he had something like that, he knew he would have to break into this mansion and search it from top to bottom if necessary, just to find her.

Just as his thoughts had drifted toward destroying the mansion outright—

Thick mist began to spread outward in a circle from the mansion.

And before his eyes, it formed a round shape.

It looked almost like…

“A door?”

Ananta muttered without thinking.

As if responding to his words, a handle formed on the mist-door.

“A polite invitation, is it?”

Casting one last glance at the glowing window in the distance, he placed his hand on the handle. The mist was damp and cold, but he could grasp it firmly.

It was a strange situation, but this was Lavanto—strange things here were not unusual.

As the knob turned soundlessly, the mist surged forward and swallowed Ananta whole.

“No way…”

Rinka couldn’t bring herself to speak further, instead running her fingers over the pale blue seashell in her palm.

Hearing a real merman—a merman who had given her these very powers—tell her such things was both shocking and mysterious.

“Then… the reason I needed seawater wasn’t because I was only half?”

“That’s right. The sea merely showed the way to one who didn’t know it.”

“And when I get drenched in seawater, scales appear no matter what.”

She had heard many things, but the most important point remained the same.

Rinka must not come into contact with seawater. Ordinary merfolk were born with scales visible in part, but because she was half-human, they only showed when her skin touched water.

And that was the problem.

She still had to cross the sea to return to land, and it would be just as dangerous.

Eden explained that half-blood merfolk were so rare, hardly anything was known about them.

“The sea monster…”

Her mother had told her about it. The sea monster searching for the half-blood mermaid—supposedly the first and last of her kind.

“No one knows. Whether it’s alive, dead… Even if it died, it’s not the sort to have gone quietly.”

Even Eden, who avoided speaking of the creature in detail, looked displeased as he admitted it had influenced the sea in countless ways.

Rinka gave a small nod.

“Alright. Then I’ll take Pearl back with me.”

“Good. And, child—”

“Yes?”

“Being careful is good, but for merfolk, instinct comes first.”

What kind of nonsense was that supposed to be?

Watching her father suddenly turn so solemn, Rinka couldn’t help but wonder how in the world this man—or rather, this merman—had ever ended up marrying her mother.