“H-how did you know?”

When a startled Letis froze with her eyes wide open, the old man burst into rough laughter.

“A pretty young lady with fine clothes, a gold cord around her waist, and pearl pins in her hair says she serves someone high up – where else could it be but the golden palace?”

This old man was unusually perceptive. Letis quickly hardened her expression and took a step back. Even if she got poison from a place like this, there was a high chance of being discovered when things went wrong later. Moreover, it seemed better to look elsewhere since she couldn’t predict what that shrewd-looking old man might say later.

“Oh please! I-I asked because I wanted to eat it myself! Never mind if you don’t know!”

“Hahah! You want to eat anglerfish liver? That thing so toxic people only eat it before dying? Get out of here! Strong poison is used in strong places. Poison is used where poison is needed. You’re looking for poison now, aren’t you?”

“N-no, I’m not! How dare you say such things when you don’t even know…!”

“I’ve seen plenty like you ruining their own lives trying to ruin others’. Get out now! I treated you this time, but don’t ever show your face here again!”

When the old man shouted, the fish that had been playfully circling around him all rushed at Letis at once, bumping into her. Some fish even bit at her hair and skin with their tiny teeth, forcing Letis to run out of the cave screaming.

Crazy old man!

No, how did he know? He was unusually perceptive. Letis, who had been fuming, let out a deep sigh.

The anglerfish liver was a lost cause, and what remained were blue octopus poison or black shrimp eggs. Both were not easy to obtain.

Should she try to get pufferfish poison then? Though that was the easiest to obtain, the problem was that it was also easy to treat. She wanted something that would cause prolonged suffering…

“Hey.”

“Eek!”

Perhaps because she was having wicked thoughts. Letis screamed and fell backward when someone suddenly grabbed her shoulder. A long black shadow loomed over Letis, who had landed on her bottom.

“W-what do you want?!”

Letis angrily looked up at the old woman covered in black cloth.

She seemed familiar for a moment, and then she realized – it was the same black shadow that had bumped past her earlier in the cave of the one called “Teacher.”

“I have something very good for you.”

The old woman, with red-painted lips stretched into a smile under her black hood, whispered in an alluring voice.

“Something much better than anglerfish liver…. What do you say, want to hear about it?”

***

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The sharp sound of a blade striking hard rock echoed repeatedly from a corner of the quiet coral garden. Each time the rock was struck, strong vibrations traveled up through the wrist. It had been hours since she started striking the unbreakable rock with the knife. The palm gripping the knife was red, and sweat drenched her flushed face.

Clang! Clang!

Could she become even a little stronger this way? When she couldn’t even break one rock now, could she strike down that man’s chest with this kind of strength, when it would surely be harder than rock?

Though doubt outweighed certainty, she thought it was better than doing nothing. In truth, her mind was complicated, and if she didn’t do something, stray thoughts would keep dominating her head.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Had Persephone gone up to the surface? Where was Echidna? How many days had passed out of the 100 days promised to Triton? There had been so many days when she was unconscious that it was hard to count the exact dates. The last time she counted was around 40 days… would it be around 50 days now?

…Clang, Clang! CLANG!!!

“Huff, hah, huff…!”

Taking shallow breaths, Livia collapsed onto the ground and clutched her stinging throat.

Drops of sweat fell at her feet. Glancing at the rock, she had struck it over 100 times, but far from breaking, it didn’t even have a single crack and remained perfectly intact. Only Livia, who had been challenging the rock, had fallen apart.

Suddenly, she wondered how her current direct challenge to Triton was any different from striking this raw rock now.

“…Really now.”

The moment those words slipped out, Livia’s brow contorted in pain. The pain that felt like it was stabbing her throat, which hadn’t been so noticeable while she was abusing her body striking the rock, intensified as soon as her body relaxed a bit.

“Cough! Ugh….”

She had thought it would get better with time, but it wasn’t at all. Whether the porcelain fragments had been digested or not, the pain rather spread from her throat to her stomach. She clutched her trembling stomach with shaking hands.

Though she had become outwardly tough thanks to the blessing of the Styx, her inner core was no different from before. Rather, through various trials and hardships, it seemed she had become weaker if anything, certainly not stronger. Suddenly, she became newly conscious of the lingering foreign sensation between her legs. Her ears instantly turned red at that raw and messy sensation.

“Damn… it…”

After wiping her cold sweat-covered forehead with the back of her hand, Livia remained collapsed there, waiting for the pain to subside. She felt utterly lost about how to treat her injured throat.

‘Just how many porcelain fragments did that nymph put in?’

She suppressed the harsh words that were about to spill out. Seeing how it hurt more the more she spoke, it seemed better to not say anything at all if possible.

As she kept letting out deep sighs, she suddenly thought how truly absurd her life was.

Though she had tried to live as ordinarily as possible, her life had become more extraordinary than anyone else’s. She felt like going to the goddess of fate and demanding answers if she ever got the chance. To ask if this was really the life she had woven for her… to shout and ask by what right she had embroidered someone else’s life in such a way.

‘I just… really just wanted to live an ordinary life.’

That was the only thing she had wanted since birth.

She just wanted to be at peace.

She wanted to live quietly without great ambition beside her family who had unhesitatingly taken her abandoned hand. A life where she would force herself up in the morning while rubbing sleepy eyes, and worry together about what to eat for dinner and how to prepare it.

She had wanted to support Iason, who dreamed of becoming a captain steering a large ship someday, and help Lete, who had wanted to study.

Just one step behind, being a small help in the lives of the family who had accepted her – that was the extent of Livia’s ambition.

How did it end up like this…?

Why did you kill innocent people like us and make things turn out this way? Why…!

Terrible depression and anger shook her simultaneously. Even thinking about it again, her revenge was justified. She had tried to live an ordinary life without greed, but they were the ones who ruined it. Wasn’t it said that greed brings disaster? Livia would gladly become their disaster.

Thanks to that, Livia was now striking an unbreakable rock with a witch’s knife in these deep waters. She had even rolled around with a god on this wet ground – what an eventful life this was.

It would be no exaggeration to say that from the moment her family died, Livia had moved at full speed away from the peaceful and ordinary life she had wanted.

‘How absurd.’

If this was really the fate allocated to her from the beginning, she couldn’t understand why such a fate had been handed to her of all people. The world was full of people who wanted to live special lives. There were probably more people who wanted to fall in love with beautiful gods than there were flowers blooming in the fields. But not her.

Losing the family she wanted to protect and living a life opposing the sea god – fate had moved in the direction Livia least wanted.

She even began to wonder if perhaps the god of fate hated her. No, maybe all the gods in this world hated her? Perhaps she… was a fate that should never have been born.

“Livia.”

At that moment, ironically, the voice of the god who had tormented her the most until now came to mind.

“From the moment you challenged me, you became mine, Livia.”

The feeling of being cruelly deeply penetrated by that massive organ that was no different from a weapon, that absurd voice whispering that I was his.

“Take out the golden dagger now, Livia.”

“I’ll let my guard down as much as you want.”

That body that held her close while giving her the knife saying he would let his guard down as much as she wanted, and even that cool body temperature….

Though he had been crueler to Livia than anyone else in the world, in bed he held her close while whispering her name in the most tender tone in the world.

He was full of such contradictions.

Wasn’t he the man who said humans were weak and detestable beings, yet casually buried his face between the legs of her, a human? He who took away her voice and acted as if he would gouge out her eyes, yet how persistently he sucked and licked her in bed.

That touch and sensation felt as vivid as if it had happened just moments ago. Perhaps because it came back too vividly, fluid suddenly gushed out between her tightly closed narrow gap. Just as a startled Livia opened her eyes wide-

“What are you thinking about so deeply?”

“……!”

Of all times, the very man from her thoughts appeared behind her shoulder.