Free Web NovelThe sea I had leapt into without a plan was like the inside of the spirit's heart. Cold as ice, dark as the abyss.
The freezing chill stabbed all over my body like needles. My vision was blurred by bubbles, but I forced my eyes wide and searched around me.
Then I found Margon not far away.
For some reason, even though he had only just fallen in, his skin had already gone pale, and he could not move. Worse, his heavy body was slowly sinking as though buoyancy meant nothing.
In panic, I kicked and clawed through the water toward Margon. No, I tried to.
But no matter how hard I fought the current with my hands and feet, the distance between us would not close.
Moving underwater was twice as hard as moving on land. My chest felt ready to burst from lack of air, and my swimming grew slower and slower.
Even so, I did not give up. I kept thrashing my arms and legs. The current shoved me back over and over, but in the end I managed to reach him.
I grabbed his stiffened arm and slung it over my shoulder. Then I kicked with all the strength I had.
But carrying an unconscious grown man through a storming sea was no easy thing. No matter how hard I swam, all we did was sink deeper.
If I were alone, I could have made it back to the surface... damn it.
With Margon over my shoulder, I struggled like mad. The more violently I fought, the closer my breath came to its limit. Cold seawater poured into my mouth as it fell open on instinct.
My vision went dark, and my thoughts stopped. Just as the body that had been struggling to survive began to slow,
a dazzling light pierced through the pitch-black darkness and found me. A powerful force, as if pulling us with a magnet, yanked Margon and me out of the sea.
"Phah... khk, cough, kuhk..."
I hit the deck of the boat and hurriedly spat out water. Then I dragged in what little air I could and coughed violently.
My vision was still blurred, but I grabbed the collapsed Margon beside me and shook him. I had no time to panic over his corpse-still body, and no time to grieve either.
Margon, unconscious, was not breathing. I tilted his head back and lifted his chin to open his airway.
I climbed onto him at once, stacked both hands together, and began compressing the center of his chest. My jaw chattered from the cold as I counted.
The moment I finished thirty chest compressions, I pinched Margon's nose shut and breathed into his mouth. My own breathing was unstable too, but I forced air into him until his chest rose.
When there was still no sign of breathing, I started chest compressions again.
Rainwater, seawater, or maybe tears I had shed myself. I shook the wetness from my drenched face and stared down at the unconscious Margon.
"No... no, not you... not you. Absolutely not..."
This time, instead of counting, I kept repeating that it couldn't happen. My mind had gone white at the sight of Margon's pale face.
I blew breath into him and compressed his chest again and again, but nothing changed. Soaked in despair, I clenched my fist and started pounding on his chest.
"Wake up! Wake up, Margon!! You bastard, breathe!!"
His chest was packed so solid with muscle that hitting it made my own hand ache. Even so, I did not stop. I kept slamming my fist down in a near-trance.
At last, just before his ribs might have broken, the seawater pooled in Margon's mouth burst out in a gush.
"Kuhk, cough... khh..."
"Margon! Breathe! Slowly, breathe!"
"Khh, haa, hah..."
I turned Margon's head to the side so he could breathe more easily. Only after I saw color slowly returning to his deathly pale face as air finally entered him did the tension leave my body.
I collapsed over him as though covering him with my own body. Relief that Margon had not died surged through me, and at the same time a rage so fierce it felt like my skull would split.
Grinding my teeth, I pushed myself upright. Then I met a pair of blue eyes rippling like waves.
'...Ceryl, you...'
At some point, Varen had taken his true form. A gigantic golden dragon, as large as a house, was beating his wings while holding the boat aloft. His massive body was shielding us from the pounding rain.
Then the spirit's intrigued voice followed.
'Hmm. Didn't you say that was the mate of a Dravergh?'
'......'
Varen's stunned eyes were fixed on me, but there was no time to ask why.
I drew in a breath and screamed at the mountain-high wave.
"Hey, you son of a bitch!!!"
My brain, which had only barely crawled back from death, was no longer rational. I had almost lost another companion right in front of me. I was consumed by anger in its purest possible form.
At that point, I no longer cared whether it was a spirit or anything else. I did not even feel fear anymore.
"If you're going to pull this bullshit, do it to me! Why the fuck are you doing it to Margon, huh?! Who the hell do you think you are?! Just because you're a spirit, does that make you everything, you fucking bastard?!"
Compared to the size of my fury, the number of curses I actually knew was limited. But I did not care. I screamed the same insults dozens of times and raged at the wave.
"You treat human lives like fly lives, you bastard! And you still call yourself a spirit? A spirit?! You're just a damned water ghost, got it?!"
'...What, a water ghost?'
"That's right! We don't need a bastard like you either!! Get lost, you fucking asshole!!!"
Only after hurling every curse I had did I finally feel a little better.
Out on the vast sea, all that remained was the sound of rain slamming onto the water and my own rough breathing. ƒreewebɳovel.com
Then, after a long moment, a low sunken voice rang inside my head.
'Haah... Ceryl, I told you not to step in.' fгeewebnovёl.com
At Varen's words, my reason came back at last, far too late.
I stiffly raised my head. I saw the golden dragon, neck arched high, glaring at the wave.
'I truly... truly dislike humans.'
The moment the spirit finished speaking, a pillar of water shot up from the sea. It aimed directly for the boat we were on, but Varen rose lightly and dodged it.
Without warning, I found myself riding in a flying boat. The hull pitched violently, and I fell across Margon, who still had not fully recovered.
"Ugh, seriously... what a petty bastard..."
Even though he himself had tried to kill Margon first. Just because I had thrown a few insults at him, the spirit attacked us.
Varen had been wrong when he said the sea spirit merely had a bad personality. Its character was garbage.
Even then, more pillars of water shot up from the sea, and the pounding rain only grew heavier. Varen, flying while narrowly dodging them, let out a groan like someone in pain.
'Tch, at this rate...'
"Aaah, Varen... just run, aaah!"
'Even fleeing, ngh, damn it...!'
Dodging the annoying water pillars pursuing us, the golden dragon opened his jaws wide. But the fire that should have boiled out like molten lava only spat weakly, like a lighter running out of gas.
'Kahahaha! Go on, whelp dragon, show me more!'
Now a violent wind came howling in too. The storm hit from every direction so fiercely that it was impossible to tell which way it blew.
The dragon's wide-spread wings were acting like a ship's sails. The wind struck them head-on and shoved him wherever it pleased.
Barely holding onto Margon, I forced my eyes open. The reason dragons in the old oral tales had not crossed the sea was right in front of me.
'Arrogant dragon, how dare you tell a lie so transparently false?'
'Khh, I do... not lie!'
'Fool. The very thing you are trying to cherish is falsehood itself.'
Each time Varen staggered in the storm, the boat he was carrying lurched wildly with him.
Before Varen could regain control, a pillar of water surged up from the deep sea below. There was no time to dodge it. It struck the underside of the boat directly.
"Aaah! Aah!!"
The impact flung Margon and me into the air. Then we were thrown clear of the boat, which was swinging like a pendulum.
With all the strength I had, I hurled Margon's body away from me. By sheer luck, he landed on the deck. My own body plummeted toward the sea again.
'Ceryl!!!'
Varen cried my name, his eyes blazing, but inside the spirit's domain, a magical creature's telekinetic force would not work.
In that brief instant of free fall from dozens of meters above the sea,
a pointless thought crossed my mind: If I had lived with my temper buried, would I have lived a long life?
But if I had, there was an even greater chance I would have died young from swallowing all that rage.
Behind Varen's desperate voice, the spirit's sinister words followed.
'Human. Reveal the truth.'
Truth my ass.
More than fear of death, what surged up in me was the fury and resentment that still had not cooled.
Screaming, I thrust my middle finger at the towering wave.
"Go fuck yourself, you fucking bastard!!!"
I had never known what my death would look like. I had definitely never expected my last words to be a curse.
Splash. I hit the sea in an explosion of spray. My body sank down into the depths just as Margon had.
Black darkness swallowed my vision, and at last even the noise that had battered my ears was gone.
Leaving Varen behind hurt so much it felt like my chest was being torn apart, but death was calmer than I had expected.
As my body kept sinking, I could not feel anything anymore. The very deep water was not cold.
No, if anything, it was soft and warm. Then something wrapped itself around me and lifted me up.
The black darkness receded, and a gentle light lit the space before me. As I wheezed for breath, I caught a sweet, fragrant scent too.
When I slowly blinked, I saw two faces in front of me.
A woman with long brown hair, and a man with black hair and violet eyes.
The two of them looked like a married couple, and they smiled at me.
The woman stroked my fist-sized head and asked gently,
"Ceryl Lavier, my son. Are you crying because you're hungry?"
