Chapter 176. Reorganization (2)
Nereid Fishing Village.
A fairly old settlement built in Anapik, the middle region between Hellas and Barbarland. The origin of its name had something to do with mermaids.
What was it again? Something about receiving the blessing of mermaids, the daughters of Poseidon?
So, to show their gratitude, they named the fishing village Nereid, and in addition, they built a small shrine for the mermaids and offered prayers and sacrifices to them.
Well, in reality, they were basically cooperating with bastards who worshipped a fish god.
‘No, wait. Mermaids are half fish too, so I guess they’re technically maintaining the faith?’
The random thought crossed his mind for a moment, but Anagin soon pushed the question aside.
That wasn’t what mattered.
What mattered was the fact that immediately after the battle ended, nearly a hundred armed men, including a Gigant, had come to capture Anagin.
It wasn’t particularly surprising.
Nereid Fishing Village was under the influence of the Barbaroi Cult. In other words, they were Anagin’s enemies.
It was only natural for enemies to come after him, and honestly, Anagin preferred it that way. It made it clear exactly how he should deal with them.
Even so, there was one thing he couldn’t understand. What kind of confidence did these bastards have to charge at him like this?
He didn’t want to brag about himself, but seriously, wasn’t this ridiculous?
At the end of the day, it was just a fishing village.
Yet those people dared to attack him, even after seeing him fight a bishop. He genuinely couldn’t understand what they were thinking.
Well, they explained it themselves soon enough.
‘Capture that bastard! He’s weakened after the battle!! We have to catch him!!’
It seemed they had judged that Anagin had been severely weakened after fighting the bishop.
That at least made some sense.
He had been betrayed and lost a mage, and Anagin himself had suffered quite a few injuries.
His stamina had dropped too, to the point where he had collapsed flat on the ground immediately after the battle.
Even so.
It still bruised his pride a little.
Just because Anagin was injured and exhausted, they thought they could capture him themselves.......
A bunch of fish-worshipping bastards.
As if venting that irritation, Anagin immediately subdued the fishing village fighters.
It wasn’t difficult at all.
The Gigant leading the charge threw a punch, and Anagin simply matched it with a punch of his own.
Anagin’s fist collided head-on with the Gigant’s.......
Crunch!
The Gigant’s fist shattered into pieces. Ah, and his face too.
Anagin’s punch not only crushed the Gigant’s fist but also smashed his face apart.
The armed men who had rushed over to curry favor with the Barbaroi Cult froze from that single blow, and Anagin shook the blood dripping from his fist as he spoke.
“Drop your weapons and bow your heads. Refuse, and I’ll kill you.”
Simple and direct communication. The sound of weapons clattering to the ground echoed everywhere.
Maybe they got scared after seeing the enormous Pairon approach behind Anagin.
Well, whatever the reason, it didn’t matter.
“Hey, you.”
Anagin pointed at one of the surrendered fighters who looked relatively high-ranking.
“Y-Yes? Yes!”
Perhaps because he had just watched a Gigant get beaten to death in one hit, the man stammered nervously.
“Where’s the village chief? Take me there.”
* * *
The village chief’s house, which he arrived at following the guide.
As expected of a large village, it was lavish.
Anagin ordered the guide who had led him there to knock on the door. Naturally, the guide obeyed.
Knock. Knock.
Soon, a frightened voice came from inside.
“......Did you catch him?”
“Yeah, I caught him.”
Anagin answered and immediately kicked the door open.
It was a fairly thick door, but the moment Anagin’s foot struck it, it exploded apart with a loud crash.
“Eeeek—!”
The village chief screamed at the violent entrance. Ignoring him, Anagin walked inside.
Step. Step.
The house of Nereid Fishing Village’s chief was the largest and wealthiest village chief’s house Anagin had visited so far. It even had gold decorations.
Well, considering this village was the biggest one, that was only natural.
The larger the village, the more business it would be handling.
That was also the reason Anagin hadn’t cracked the chief’s skull open yet.
Without saying a word, Anagin slowly looked the village chief over.
He was wearing clothes just as luxurious as the house. Fat enough to be pudgy, though not quite obese.
Perhaps burdened by that gaze, the chief sweated profusely.
Watching him, Anagin pulled over a chair and sat down on it.
Then silence returned.
“.......”
As the suffocating silence dragged on, the one who cracked first finally opened his mouth.
“...I-I’m sorry! Sending people after you was really unavoidable!!”
The village chief apologized for sending armed men to attack Anagin.
Well, that was part of the reason Anagin had come here, but honestly, it wasn’t that important.
Even if they hadn’t attacked him, Anagin had been planning to storm the place once he had enough free time anyway.
There was something else he wanted to ask.
For example.......
“When did you start working with the Barbaroi Cult?”
“Pardon?”
“I asked when you started working with the Barbaroi Cult.”
“Ah....... A long, fairly long time ago.”
“Looks like your life isn’t very precious to you. Judging by how carelessly you answered.”
The village chief didn’t seem to understand how serious the situation was, so Anagin kindly explained it to him. Only then did the chief finally give a proper answer.
“W-Well, that is.......”
This time, the chief answered properly.
Nereid Fishing Village had been collaborating with the Barbaroi Cult for longer than the other fishing villages.
Looking at the village’s scale, it was easy enough to understand. They must have accumulated this much wealth through longer dealings with the Barbaroi Cult.
“What kind of work did you mainly do? The Barbaroi Cult must’ve demanded something.”
The village chief carefully watched Anagin’s expression, and only after Anagin warned him again did he begin answering.
There really wasn’t anything special.
Like the other fishing villages, they had offered up the village youths and lured outsiders in as sacrifices.
Honestly, that wasn’t exactly “nothing special,” but since this entire region was already a complete cesspool, Anagin decided to let it slide. Besides.......
‘This bastard’s hiding something.’
Anagin thought as he listened to the chief.
He sounded like he was explaining things in detail, but there were obvious gaps throughout his story. As though he were deliberately concealing something.
Anagin was curious what it was, but he postponed it for now.
Something more interesting had come up.
“Recently, we’ve also been supplying construction materials.”
“Materials?”
The word “Ruin” flashed through Anagin’s mind for a moment.
He had already suspected it was an important place, but at this point, he was almost certain.
If that were the case, then Ugly One wouldn’t be able to abandon the island. At least not right now.
‘Then the key is finding a way to reach the island as quickly as possible....... That’s a little troublesome.’
A method to reach the island where the Barbaroi Cult was located.
It was something Anagin had thought about once while traveling around the fishing villages.
After all, there was a possibility the Barbaroi Cult would never leave the island.
Getting to an island occupied by fish-god worshippers was troublesome, but honestly, there were several possible methods.
One representative method was traveling by airship.
If he approached by sea, the fish-men would attack him, but if he came from the sky, what could fish possibly do?
However, that method was no longer possible. The fisherman mage had been the one who owned the airship, and that bastard had betrayed them.
That was why Anagin was leaving the village chief alive for now.
He might be useful later.
Of course, even taking that into consideration, listening to someone make pathetic excuses was still an unbearable chore.
“We truly had no choice but to cooperate. If we didn’t cooperate with the Barbaroi Cult, there was no way we could survive, a-and the reason we ended up doing this was because.......”
It was a desperate plea, but unfortunately, none of it really entered Anagin’s ears.
He had already heard similar excuses enough times to make him sick of them.
Well, even the first time he heard it, he hadn’t really cared anyway.
He had absolutely no interest in the circumstances of people who sacrificed others just to survive.
Since Anagin remained silent and simply listened, the village chief apparently interpreted that as a positive sign and started spewing nonsense.
“......Could you perhaps pity us and show mercy? We truly had no choice. I’ll report that you escaped—”
“I need food and a place to rest.”
“Ah... I-I’ll gather people and prepare everything immediately.”
“Phew, I have a better idea.”
“Pardon?”
When the village chief stupidly asked again, Anagin pulled out the bronze rope hanging behind his waist.
A magical tool enhanced from the Infinite-Length Magic Rope. It had been a while since he last used it.
As Anagin lightly infused it with Energy, the bronze rope rapidly extended.
“T-That is...?”
Instead of answering, Anagin responded with actions.
He tied up the village chief with the bronze rope and dragged him outside like a dog.
“Kghaaak—!”
Bound tightly by the sturdy rope, the dragged village chief screamed.
“Oh right, hey, you.”
“...?”
“You’re not hiding anything else from me, right?”
“.......”
“Because if you are, you’re seriously fucked.”
* * *
The village chief answered that he wasn’t hiding anything.
Well, that didn’t change the fact that he was still tied up with the bronze rope and dragged around like a dog.
As he scraped across the ground, the chief continuously screamed.
The screams were so loud that the armed men and numerous villagers who had come outside all stared at him.
Maybe he was screaming on purpose, hoping someone would help him.
However, perhaps because they were too frightened, nobody stepped forward, and Anagin paid it no mind as he continued dragging him around like a dog.
If they had a problem with it, they could come at him.
“What the.......”
When Anagin returned while dragging the tightly bound village chief behind him, the mages muttered in disbelief.
They had expected him to cause trouble, but apparently not this kind of trouble.
“Why did you bring the village chief...?”
It felt like the latter half of the sentence, “I thought you’d kill him,” had been omitted, but Anagin didn’t care. He actually had considered whether to kill him or not.
“He said he wanted to apologize to us.”
“Excuse me...?”
“No? You don’t want to apologize?”
“N-No! That’s right! You’re correct! We had no choice but to cooperate, but we truly are sorry.... It may not be enough as an apology, but we’ll provide food and lodging, so please......!”
When Anagin frowned, the village chief, now covered in dirt and wounds like a potato, apologized to the mages like a dog.
Whether it would truly comfort them after the betrayal by the fisherman mage was uncertain, but Anagin figured it might at least ease things a little.
After all, when bad things happened, there was nothing better than taking your anger out somewhere unrelated.
Fortunately, it seemed to help at least a little.
“Hah.......”
“So, have you decided?”
After resolving the village issue, Anagin immediately demanded an answer from the mages.
Would they join him in taking revenge on the fisherman mage, or simply give up?
Personally, he preferred the former, but he didn’t particularly care if they chose the latter either. He just wanted them to make a decision.
“What do you need us to do?”
The mages chose revenge.
“First, tell me everything you know about the fisherman mage. And if you know why he betrayed you, tell me that too.”
“Sorry, but we don’t know the exact reason for the betrayal.”
“So you know the rough reason?”
“Well, something like that. He was always chasing a higher rank.”
It turned out the fisherman mage had been classified as a high-ranking mage even within Magno. Anagin had sensed that the bastard was hiding his true strength, but he hadn’t expected it to that extent.
For reference, the rest, including the dead transformation mage, had only been classified as mid-ranking mages.
So there was a reason the fisherman mage had acted as the leader.
“But what does pursuing a higher rank have to do with betrayal? Do you become stronger by teaming up with the Barbaroi Cult?”
“I don’t know the details either. But pursuing a higher rank to that extent is abnormal.”
“Don’t mages care about growing stronger?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Mages thirst for growth more than anyone else. It’s just that, due to the nature of magic, it isn’t easy.”
Anagin roughly understood what he meant. He had picked up bits and pieces before.
Magic was a field heavily influenced by innate talent and disposition, so hard work alone didn’t guarantee improvement. Otherwise, every random idiot would’ve become a mage.
To put it a bit extremely, a mage could actually grow weaker the more they struggled, or become stronger while being lazy.
Of course, in such cases, the chances of the mage being consumed by their own magic also increased, but the point was that magic was just that dangerous and unpredictable.
Mages pursued higher ranks, but at the same time, they tried not to become overly obsessed with them.
If they obsessed too much, things could backfire, and unforeseen side effects might appear. So they deliberately maintained a healthy distance while pretending to be fine.
Seen that way, the fisherman mage was quite unusual.
Despite already possessing tremendous skill, he pursued a higher rank to the point of seeming impatient.
“Now that I think about it, it really was strange.......”
“What was?”
“Piscinis. Unlike us, his abilities steadily improved in proportion to his effort. You could say it was stable.”
“Why didn’t you think it was strange before?”
“Because we thought it was just talent... and he was our friend. Honestly, he wasn’t this bad before.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Once he stopped improving any further, he started getting anxious.”
It sounded similar to Orpheus’s case.
Growth halted at a certain point, leaving him anxious. The kind of state where someone would do anything.
It felt like there was yet another reason to beat the fisherman mage to death.
Maybe it was even related to that “innate nature” the Ugly One had mentioned.
Anagin dug deeper into that topic.
“Anything else? Like where he was born or raised?”
“We don’t know. At most, we heard he was born as a bastard child of a good family. In the first place, we don’t really ask each other about such things.”
Anagin didn’t ask why.
He had already heard that many mages affiliated with Magno had suffered persecution.
So he decided not to pry further. He didn’t particularly want to dig into other people’s painful pasts.
“What’s the plan?”
“First, we eat and rest. We’ll talk about details after that.”
Anagin tore apart the bronze rope and tossed the village chief over.
The implication being that they should use the bound chief to get food and rest.
"You're more laid-back than I thought. It doesn't suit you."
“I just know when to charge ahead and when to rest.”
“A time to rest.... Not wrong, I suppose. Are you going to rest too?”
“After one last conversation.”
Leaving those words behind, Anagin approached the final person remaining.
The female subordinate guarded by Sphinx.
“You said you had something you wanted to ask me?”
* * *
When the female subordinate said she wanted to ask Anagin something, he thought it wasn’t a bad idea.
After all, questions revealed more than answers ever could.
Answers could be forced, but questions were asked entirely of one’s own will.
From that perspective, her question was rather interesting.
“Why did you reject the Barbaroi Cult’s offer?”
The female subordinate, who had watched the conversation between Anagin and Ugly One through the crystal orb, asked why he had refused to hear the method of directly stealing blessings from the gods.
Ugly One had offered to tell him, but Anagin had flipped the table before hearing it.
Unless someone was a deeply devout practitioner, it was an offer no normal person could refuse.
Wasn’t that true? Practitioners accumulated merit in the gods’ names not because they possessed genuine faith, but because of the blessings the gods granted them.
The phrase “more interested in the food offered at the ritual than the ritual itself” suited them perfectly.
The female subordinate understood clearly now. Humans were beings like that.
But the human before her was different.
“I just didn’t feel like it.”
“......Stop joking around and answer properly—”
“I’m not joking, you crazy bitch.”
When she started becoming annoying, Anagin immediately cursed at her.
If one had to be precise, there were other reasons too.
It could’ve been a lie. It could’ve been a trap. And beating the answer out of them sounded more profitable anyway.
However, the biggest reason was simply that he didn’t feel like it.
“My pride won’t let me make deals with fish-worshipping idiots.”
“.......”
After hearing the explanation, the female subordinate stared at Anagin as though she genuinely couldn’t believe him.
It was enough to make him wonder what kind of life she had lived to become so distrustful.
“If you’ve got nothing else to say, I’m leaving.”
Anagin had grown tired of her constant wariness and tried to end the conversation.
He had wanted to talk, but her attitude was gradually becoming more annoying than anything else.
Besides, in that state, no matter what kind of conversation they had, it probably wouldn’t amount to much anyway.
“I want to make a deal.”
“A deal?”
“Yes. A deal....... I heard you’re unexpectedly strict about that sort of thing.”
The female subordinate glanced toward Sphinx.
Anagin also turned his head toward Sphinx and asked,
“When did you two get so close?”
“I’m just naturally sociable.”
"Ugh, how annoying."
After throwing an insult at the boastful Sphinx, Anagin turned back toward the female subordinate.
“What do you want?”
“Save my younger siblings.”
The female subordinate tried to answer calmly, but her words came out slightly faster than usual.
She failed to completely hide her urgency.
Instead of asking whether she had truly become a subordinate for the sake of her siblings, Anagin asked what she would offer in return.
After all, a deal required give and take.
“I’ll grant you a blessing.”
Anagin started wondering whether the female subordinate had actually watched the crystal orb properly.
He was pretty sure he had already said he had no hobby of begging.
No, more importantly.......
“How exactly are you going to grant blessings?”
“Because I am a god. A sea goddess who governs part of the sea in my father’s stead.”
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