“Kack! Keck! Urgh…!”

Letis ran frantically, escaping from the golden palace. She was terrified that the shark might chase after her and bite her again.

No, perhaps what she truly feared was that human woman whom she had considered insignificant. The woman’s cold gaze as she opened Letis’s mouth without a moment’s hesitation clung to her like the afterimage of the shark.

“Huff! Kuh!”

After running mindlessly like that, Letis stopped when she was nearly out of breath and broke into rough coughing. Her throat felt like it would tear apart with each cough. Staggering, she grabbed the wall for support and suffered for a while before sharply turning around.

Her vertically split pupils were now filled with anger and resentment rather than fear.

‘How dare she, that thing?’

She never thought the woman would forcefully open her mouth and shove in stew scooped from the floor. When she had quietly accepted the rags Letis had given her, she had thought the woman was docile, but that wasn’t the case at all.

Well… if she had been as innocent and gentle as she appeared, she probably couldn’t have stayed by the sea god’s side. Her judgment had been shallow. She should have taken more time to approach… should have wormed her way in gradually like Audike….

‘No, that would have been impossible anyway. How could I pretend to be friendly with a smile when I hate her so much?’

Letis shook her head while grinding her teeth. The feeling of porcelain fragments that she had ground and added herself scratching and sticking to her throat was truly horrible. Ah, what a vicious human woman….

What did Audike find so good about taking this human woman’s side? And what was Triton thinking, keeping a human woman by his side when he had so despised them? Though she was pretty enough, she wasn’t such a beauty to compare to Lady Selene.

‘Lady Selene…’

Thinking of Selene made Letis’s heart ache even more. The only goddess who could stand beside the sea god, the noble light that brightly illuminated the dark night, a great deity who stood shoulder to shoulder with the sun…. She couldn’t understand her master who rejected such a deity’s love. Moreover, because of this, her lifelong wish had vanished like bubbles, making her hate her master.

***

“Serve Triton well. When your devotion shines, I shall one day call you to be my moonlight attendant.”

“Re-really? You mean I could really become one of Lady Selene’s moonlight attendants?”

When the goddess smiled benevolently and stroked her golden hair, Letis felt as happy as if she owned the whole world. To think she could become a spirit that could travel all worlds draped in night’s curtain, following the moon goddess…!

‘I thought I could finally rise upward…’

Letis buried her distorted face of despair in her hands. Though people knew that Letis’s father was of lesser divine lineage, no one knew which deity it was. This was because Letis never told anyone. She couldn’t tell. It was too shameful and embarrassing; she simply couldn’t tell anyone.

The god of the Brine Pool, a lake of death in the sea…. No, could such a being even be called a god? It was merely darkness that simply ‘existed.’

The Brine Pool was called a lake, but it was no different from a death pit filled with poison. Even sea creatures would die from the intense salinity if they accidentally fell in.

Decades ago, Letis’s mother had nearly died after accidentally falling in there. Ironically, it was the master of that death lake who saved the young nymph struggling to survive.

The lesser god sowed his seed in the nymph’s womb in exchange for saving her life. The nymph carried the child of a lesser god who could neither see nor speak, and that child was born and given the name Letis.

Letis’s origin was the darkest and quietest place in all the sea. She found this fact horrifying. She detested the unpleasant lake smell that came from him whenever he would visit her occasionally, pretending to be a father.

Letis wanted to go up above the surface, not down below. She wanted to become light rising to heights, not darkness sinking down. This had been her one and only wish since childhood, and as if by fate, someone appeared who could grant that wish.

Selene, the beautiful moon goddess….

However, the moon goddess who had been Letis’s light and hope departed. All because of that damned red-haired human woman!

“Lady Selene, why did you leave like that? Please come back and drive out that ugly human. That human is ruining Lord Triton. Please drive out that wicked human and become the mistress of the sea…!”

“How noisy. I don’t want to hear anything more about Triton. So stop bothering me now. If you approach me like this again, I will punish you then!”

“La-Lady Selene? How could you say such things! It’s me! Letis of the sea palace! The very nymph you said you would accept as your moonlight attendant!”

“…I did? Tsk, nonsense. Something like you isn’t worthy of being among the moonlight attendants. I’ll say it once more – if you bother me again, I’ll gouge out your eyes so you’ll never see moonlight again.”

It was like a bolt from the blue. Where had the kind moon goddess gone, replaced by such harsh and cold words? To even say that the promise to make her a moonlight attendant had never existed….

At first, Letis denied this terrible situation. She couldn’t accept Selene’s suddenly changed attitude. She wanted to call out to the goddess again. She wanted to beg to know if she was really abandoning her, but the threat to gouge out her eyes made her hesitate to act.

Then she became sad about her suddenly abandoned state. Letis had considered her true master to be Selene, not Triton. From the moment he took that disgusting human woman to his side, Triton’s nobility was tainted, and even her desire to worship him disappeared. She was also disappointed in his poor judgment in keeping a human woman by his side despite having Lady Selene.

Finally, anger arose. That misplaced anger was all directed at the red-haired human woman.

She felt that human woman had ruined everything.

Letis’s future, Triton’s nobility, Selene’s benevolence. They all disappeared because of that human woman!

Letis wanted to grab the human woman’s hair right away, but approaching her wasn’t easy. Since Audike practically took care of all matters related to this human woman, there was no chance to get close.

So Letis had no choice but to make Audike sick. Well, it was just enough to give her an upset stomach. At worst, she would be rolling around on the floor for a few days before returning, so Letis didn’t feel much guilt.

The original plan was to hover around the human woman and take out her frustrations bit by bit. But that incident just now had changed her mind. Letis now wanted to drive that woman out of this sea somehow.

‘What should I do? Is there a way to eliminate that human woman without revealing myself?’

While irritably rubbing her stinging throat and pondering deeply, Letis first went to remove the fragments stuck in her throat.

Throughout the deep sea, there were “colonies” similar to what humans called “markets.” The largest among them was the “Sea Hare Colony” near the seaweed forest. It had everything needed and not needed for sea life, as well as various treasures that humans had lost to the sea.

As such, there were even those who could remove things like small branches stuck in throats. Since fish was their staple food, getting bones stuck was a daily occurrence.

Letis went to see an old man who had long been called “Teacher.”

The man with large gills on the sides of his face specialized in treating sea creatures using small fish. Though there were many suspicious rumors about whether the man’s medicine had saved or killed people, nymphs often sought him out as he was the only one who performed “treatment.”

The man’s cave was located in a very deep place. Though Letis, who detested darkness, hesitated to enter, the pain in her throat was getting worse, so she had no choice but to go in.

“….Excuse me?”

There were no customers visible in the dim cave. If there was any consolation, it was that it wasn’t too dark thanks to bioluminescent organisms of unknown origin lighting up various parts of the cave.

Letis waited a bit and then called out again loudly.

“Excuse me!”

Raising her voice made her throat hurt more. Just as an extremely irritated Letis was about to venture deeper into the cave, someone suddenly rushed out from the depths and bumped past her.

“Ah!”

Just as she was about to grab the woman who was trying to pass by without apologizing for hitting her shoulder, the man called “Teacher” came out.

“What’s the matter?”

“Something’s stuck in my throat and I came to remove it… No, but who was that person?”

“That’s none of your business. Come here and I’ll remove the bone for you.”

The old man sat Letis down and whistled softly through pursed lips. As the strange vacuum sound spread widely like a dolphin’s call, a school of small fish that looked like anchovies swarmed to the old man from somewhere.

“Open your mouth, so these ones can get in!”

At the old man’s bark, she opened her mouth wide and the small fish rushed into Letis’s mouth. There was a stinging sensation for a moment, and then the treatment was over instantly. The fish that came out of Letis’s mouth spat out what they had retrieved into the old man’s hand.

“Were you so hungry that you ate something like this?”

The old man clicked his tongue while shaking off the sharp, tiny fragments the fish had spat out. Though his scolding attitude was irritating, she didn’t argue since he had solved the problem quickly.

Besides, Letis actually had something else she wanted to ask the old man. While pretending to look around, she carefully opened her mouth.

“Mister, do you happen to have something like anglerfish liver here?”

At Letis’s question, the old man raised one eyebrow and looked at her. Feeling like he was seeing right through her intentions, Letis hurriedly blurted out an excuse that wasn’t really an excuse.

“Ah, no! You see, someone in high places said they wanted to eat food made with anglerfish liver. It’s known to be very delicious, as toxic as it is, right?”

The old man’s mouth twisted as he stared at Letis through narrowed eyes, and a mocking voice flowed out.

“You’re telling me the golden palace couldn’t get anglerfish liver, so you came all the way here?”