The Main Character is the Villain

"Idiots."

Lua grumbled as she drew the magic circle. Beside her, standing in the middle of Mermaid Island, lay piles of residual waste left behind when the fish-men emerged. A terrible stench spread through the cave. Whenever she placed a human on the magic circle and chanted a spell, fish-men of Hell would crawl out, using the human's body as a conduit.

"Such absolute idiots."

Lua finished the magic circle while grumbling. On the day she saved the mermaid, the mermaid she rescued looked at the scale-covered lower bodies of Lua and the lamias and asked in a dazed voice.

"A-Are you our kin?"

Simply, the idea she impulsively came up with at that time was being a 'mermaid hybrid'. Lua said, "That is right. We are mermaids, but we are a rather bizarre race mixed with lamia blood. We need a place to stay, so I want you to guide us to where you live." The mermaid believed these words at face value and guided Lua to Mermaid Island.

"Stupid bitches who can't even take care of themselves."

Lua had thought these mermaids were incredibly stupid from the very first time she came to Mermaid Island. These mermaids did not know how to fight. To Lua, their lukewarm attitude only seemed pathetic and foolish. Lua confronted the captain of Mermaid Island.

"Idiots, do you not know how to fight? Who else is as strong as you in the water, so why do you live taking losses from humans? You should fight instead. Kill them all."

"But humans are everywhere. Even if we fight, we cannot win. If we fight, we will only end up dying instead."

Despair was rampant on the island. According to the leader, this island was originally untouched by humans, but their territory had recently expanded. To Lua, the leader's lukewarm response was nothing but frustrating. Lua spoke.

"Then are you just going to die like this? The reason humans hunt you is because your resistance is so lukewarm. You have to instill fear in them so they won't dare attack. Watch closely."

From then on, the actual authority passed to Lua. She had the mermaids bring people who fell into the sea. Seeing one or two gathered people transform into fish-men, the mermaids were terrified. However, they were only excited by human blood and did not touch the mermaids at all.

Even the mermaids who feared their hideous appearances gradually grew accustomed to the docile, pet-like behavior of the fish-men.

From that point on, the dynamics of the sea changed. The fish-men attacked ships, and the mermaids fished out drowning people and dragged them to Mermaid Island. Lua placed the humans on the magic circle and chanted spells. As the fish-men were mass-produced, the number of attempts people made to capture mermaids also began to decrease.

It was because the fish-men completely shattered any suspicious ships. Displaying the same combat power underwater as above water, the fish-men were terrifying objects of fear to humans with no combat experience. However, Lua felt that this was not enough. A lukewarm counterattack would eventually bring about greater retaliation.

"Such foolish bitches who can't do anything without me."

She had to crush them so decisively that they wouldn't even dare think of revenge. She needed to make it known just how terrifying mermaids were on the sea to draw out a definitive negotiation. Revenge for the Demon King or the revival of the lamia clan were no longer in Lua's mind. The only thing she wished for was one thing: the safety of the mermaids.

Her plan was as follows. Use the mermaids to make contact with the lamias still remaining on the surface. Use guerrilla tactics with the fish-men and lamias. Devastate the major ports and perfectly secure maritime supremacy. Even with the humans' level of military force, knight orders or heroes would be the extent of it, and they could not defeat the fish-men in mobile warfare using the sea routes. At the point where all the coastal cities of the Western Region were drying up and dying, she would propose a negotiation as the mermaid representative.

She was confident. Even if the hero who defeated the weakened Demon King came in person, they could not defeat the fish-men and mermaids on the sea. If their ship was destroyed, even a hero would have no way to hold out. As long as they were human, they had to breathe, and every time they swung a sword with force, their bodies were bound to sink. Dragging them underwater meant certain victory.

There was no possibility of facing a counterattack, either. Unless they brought in an incredibly strong mermaid from somewhere, they wouldn't be able to break through the barrier of the fish-men and mermaids to reach the Whale Reef.

If they led large-scale troops, they wouldn't be able to pass through the strait swarming with rough ocean currents and reefs, and a small elite unit on a single small ship couldn't break through the fish-men. Would they allow the mermaids' autonomy and regain coastal stability, or would they surrender the Western Region like this? Lua intended to force such a choice upon the humans.

"Truly, such foolish brats."

Lua covered the magic circle while grumbling. Tomorrow, new people were scheduled to be dragged in. Lua would throw all those people onto the magic circle and chant a spell to summon the fish-men. A general nautical chart of this area was drawn in the corner of the cave. Because they had utterly destroyed most of the regions, there were only a few places left.

As the resistance grew stronger, it took some time to destroy the regions, but this was also within expectations. No matter who came, they wouldn't be able to break through the fish-men and reach the Whale Reef anyway. Lua rubbed her tail, lost in thought.

A mutant of a mermaid and a lamia was a ridiculous notion even to her. Lua herself didn't quite understand why she wanted to protect the mermaids this much, even going so far as to lower herself. Perhaps from the moment she saw the mermaids locked in prison, some kind of sympathy had formed inside her heart.

Mermaids trapped on Mermaid Island, unable to freely roam above water. Lamias trapped by humans for hundreds of years, unable to come outside. Lua might have found a strange sense of empathy between them.

Today as well, the image of the dying lamias flashed through her mind. The lamias who plummeted back underground as the Demon King was sealed once again. Perhaps Lua was ruling over these mermaids, considering them as substitutes for the lamias.

"You there."

She called out to stop a mermaid passing in front of the cave. At Lua's call, the mermaid wore an anxious expression, looking around her surroundings before entering. Like the mermaid who told her not to come out just before, these mermaids' expressions were full of anxiety today of all days. Lua frowned and asked.

"Are you sure nothing is actually going on outside?"

"N-No."

Lua simply nodded her head at those words. Because the air on Mermaid Island was very chilly, it was hard for Lua, a lamia, to endure if not for this cave that blocked the wind. As the sun was setting, the temperature dropped rapidly. Therefore, instead of going out to check, Lua said this.

"Tell me if anything happens. I can solve it all."

"Ah, yes!"

The mermaid smiled awkwardly and replied. Lua looked at the nautical chart again. There was a starred region on the chart. It was a highland in the Western Coastal Region. According to the lamias' report, Hasom flowers grew on that coastal highland. But Lua could not go to that highland right now. As long as she was taking care of these mermaids, she wouldn't be going there in the future, either.

"Do you know what a Hasom flower is?"

The mermaid stopped trying to leave and stared at Lua with a puzzled expression. Lua spoke while looking at the chart.

"It's a purple flower that only blooms in the highland area. It has seven petals that overlap each other, so it looks incredibly dense and heavy. When I climbed the highland with my maids, they would search through the rock crevices, pluck the Hasom flowers, and make a bouquet. They would present it to me as if it were the most beautiful jewel in the world and say, 'Queen. We picked these flowers because we thought they would suit you.'"

The mermaid just stared blankly at Lua. Lua knew it was useless to tell the mermaid such a story. Their interests were fish and the blue sea. And things like beautiful reefs and corals. Stories about highland Hasom flowers or the lamias' ancient kingdom held no inspiration for the mermaids. However, Lua wanted to speak. Because her throat was burning.

Her throat was burning like a rising thirst, making her want to speak.

"For the past hundreds of years, the reason I've lived was because I wanted to see my children place a flower crown on me."

"I'm sure it will turn out that way."

The mermaid smiled shyly and agreed with her. Lua nodded her head and spoke.

"I hope so. That people fear you enough that you can roam the Western Coastal Region as you please, and respect us enough that we can climb the highland. Lamias and mermaids gathering there to pick Hasom flowers, full enough for me to make a bed. And."

Lua closed her mouth. The mermaid was waiting for Lua's next words. Lua, who had been staring blankly at the chart, chuckled and spoke.

"I haven't thought about what comes next."

"...What is that..."

"Go on now."

The mermaid spoke in a much more serious and sad tone compared to Lua's. Lua smirked and waved her hand. The mermaid held back her breath with tears in her eyes, as if slightly choked up. She waved her hand back at Lua.

After the mermaid left, Lua prepared to go to bed. She resolved herself. That this time, she could do it, that she could kill the humans and create a paradise for them to live in. That she could definitely do it. Lua was that confident.

*

However, in the dead of night. A shadow that had secretly slipped into the cave's entrance stepped on and crushed a pebble. Startled, Lua raised her head and checked her surroundings. In the darkness, the silhouette of a man could be clearly seen. Pointy ears and red eyes. He lunged at Lua with the movements of an evil spirit appearing in a fairy tale.

"You, w-what... what are you doing—eueup...!"

The man covering Lua's mouth whispered.

"Shh. Be quiet. Unless you want to see all the mermaids' heads get smashed in."

At the man's words, Lua closed her mouth. His filthy hand began to slowly trail up from Lua's tail to her waist. The moment his hand touched her smooth private parts, he spoke with admiration.

"As expected, you've got a proper cunt."

"Eueup... eueup... eueup..."

The man's strength exceeded Lua's imagination. He was just pressing down on her with his legs, yet she couldn't move an inch. The sound of the man unfastening his belt was heard. Lua struggled as if having a seizure, but it was useless. The man whispered.

"Be quiet. I still gotta fuck at least one of the Four Heavenly Kings, for fuck's sake."

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