Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Zero - Volume 5 - Chapter SS6

The Sadistic Princess and the Usshi of Ur Lake

The Liberators’ flagship was currently sitting thirty kilometers west of Damdrak, and a hundred meters under the water. Sunlight didn’t reach that far down, so normally it would have been pitch dark, but the light the ship emitted illuminated the surroundings up to a point. From the transparent crystal dome bridge, you could see out a good distance into the lake.

“Oooooh!” four voices exclaimed in unison. They were staring through the bridge window at a beautiful young woman who was swimming in the water in just a bikini, Meiru Melusine.

After leaving her pirate crew, Meiru had grown accustomed to traveling on land, but she was still a dagon, a creature of the water. While a lake wasn’t the same as the ocean, Meiru had still felt a desire to swim when she’d seen such a large body of water.

“Meru-nee seems to be having a lot of fun.”

“Onee-sama...you’re so beautiful... Haaah... Haaah...”

“She does have a certain grace in the water, but stop panting, Lyu. Imagine what your countrymen would say if they could see you now.”

Meiru’s swimming was like an underwater dance. Since she could control both the current and the surrounding water pressure with her water magic, she was even more mobile underwater than on land. This was her true element. Oscar actually felt bad that Laus, who was still unconscious, and Vandre and Naiz, who were out moving the demon army, were missing this spectacle. And he knew what Meiru was like normally.

Just then, Meiru seemed to notice something at the bottom of the lake and said through her communicator, “Hey, there’s this huge wave of cold coming from below. Do any of you know what might be causing it?”

Salus, who’d been staring at Meiru with lascivious eyes, pulled himself together and responded, “Hmm...if it’s emitting cold, it’s probably the ruler of the lake. Return to the ship, Meiru.”

Salus turned to the helmsman and ordered him to change course.

“The lake has a ruler?” Meiru asked.

“It does indeed. It’s a giant, turtle-shaped monster. It can control the water currents and possesses powerful ice-based special magic. It’s relatively docile, so as long as we don’t provoke it, it shouldn’t attack.”

“So it’s not aggressive, then?”

“H-Huh? Meiru, why do you have such a ferocious look on your—?”

“Old man Salus, does this ruler have a name?”

“W-We call it Ur Lake’s Usshi.”

Who gave it such a lame name? Oscar thought, staring at Salus.

Apparently, the Usshi was in a lot of Uldea’s old folk legends. According to the stories, the spirits of the lake protected a weak baby turtle, and after centuries it grew into the powerful monster that it was today. As thanks for the protection the spirits had offered it, that same turtle now protected the lake from invaders. Oscar’s main takeaway from this story was that the ancient Uldeans had a terrible naming sense.

“Hmm, so you’re called Usshi-kun, are you? Well, you’ve sure got guts, picking a fight with me,” Meiru said in a dangerously low voice.

“What?!” Oscar and the others shouted.

“Hold on a secooooooooond!” Salus exclaimed, but it seemed the ostensibly docile Usshi really was picking a fight with Meiru.

There was a loud roar from down below as a torrent of water rushed toward her. Their ship quickly made an evasive maneuver and released the safeties on all of its weapons just in case. Salus hailed Meiru again in an attempt to call her back, but she didn’t listen.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been able to enjoy a good swim. You’ll pay for interrupting it, Usshi-kun. He he he.”

Everyone could tell Meiru was ready to kill this poor monster.

“Lyu, power me up with your evolution magic! I need a full strength boost!”

“As you wish, Onee-sama.”

Don’t just do whatever she asks! everyone else on the deck thought simultaneously.

Meiru’s body began to glow, and she pushed the surging current back with an even stronger current of her own. The water began to freeze around her, but she used restoration magic to keep returning it to its natural temperature.

“All right, Usshi-kun! Let’s see just how loud you scream!”

Unsurprisingly, Meiru handily won the fight against the Usshi. Vandre turned it into a familiar afterward and discovered from reading its thoughts that Meiru had reminded it of the water sprites that used to bully it in the past, so it’d reflexively lashed out in self-defense. Whether its thoughts reflected the truth, however, was something lost to the annals of history.