Chapter 209: What Do the Sea Witches Usually Do?
This was the first time Gawain had seen such a solemn, heavy expression on the face of the sea witch Tyr. He had always thought that look would never appear on that perpetually sleepy deep-sea fish face, but it turned out even her laziness had its limits.
And when she spoke with that expression, it was clear she wasn’t joking. Hetty immediately pressed on, “What do you mean by ‘remaking the world’?”
“Literally,” Tyr shrugged—tail tip included. “The nature of all matter changes. Some changes are subtle, barely noticeable to humans and don’t affect the essence of things. Others are earth-shattering—stones might turn into magical minerals; the magical environment of nature shifts—places once brimming with magic could become barren, while areas with scarce elemental energy might become new gateways to elemental realms. Massive extinctions and mutations happen, new species emerge rapidly, and most civilizations’ creations vanish in the upheaval.”
“…You’re just trying to scare us,” Amber said, stunned. She understood every word Tyr said, but the meaning behind them was almost unbelievable. After a long pause, she shook her head. “What you’re describing sounds no different from those doomsday cults that preach the end of the world every day.”
Tyr snorted softly. “There’s a difference. They only know the end is coming. We sea witches know how it comes.”
Gawain looked steadily into Tyr’s eyes. “You’ve actually experienced a real magical tide?”
“You should know—sea witches are far older and wiser than any land race. We were here long before your civilization learned to make fire,” Tyr said casually, twirling a fork with her tail tip as she poked at the bread and potatoes on the table. “Of course, we’ve seen things you haven’t.”
Gawain pressed on, “If the magical tide really is as you describe, how did you survive the last one?”
Rebecca stopped tearing bread into pieces and looked up at Gawain in surprise. “Ancestor, you actually believe this stuff?”
Gawain waved his hand. “Just a topic for discussion.”
“Exactly, just chatting,” Tyr smiled. “The magical tide is terrifying. Most mortal species can’t withstand it. But we sea witches are a bit special—probably because of our elemental nature. The magical tide changes the current world a lot, but it can’t alter the ‘essence’ of the elemental realm. Our life forms are based on elements, and much of our magic is element-driven. That’s why we’ve survived and our civilization endures. Of course, it still affects us…”
Tyr trailed off, seemingly unwilling to continue on this topic, muttering under her breath, “Every time, we have to start all over again…”
Hetty and Rebecca exchanged glances. What Tyr described was so incredible it almost lost its impact—sometimes when something is too shocking, it stops feeling real. But Gawain was still listening intently. “So, the magical tide that hit this continent seven hundred years ago was just a ‘small ripple’?”
“Probably,” Tyr answered casually. “I wasn’t there myself, just guessing based on your accounts.”
“Do you know how often the real magical tides come? How long until the next one?”
“That I can’t say,” Tyr shook her head. “We do believe the tides happen periodically, but the cycle is unstable—off by thousands of years. Even if today is theoretically the day of a magical tide, it might actually happen any time within the next thousand years. Who can say for sure?”
The atmosphere grew heavy without anyone noticing. Gawain glanced at Hetty and Rebecca, who hadn’t touched their forks for a while. He knew Tyr’s blunt words had put some pressure on them.
He smiled and shook his head. “Since it’s all so uncertain, there’s no need to worry—don’t forget why we chose to settle in a place like the Dark Mountains in the first place.”
“Just think of what I said as a story,” Tyr said, probably realizing she’d dampened the mood (or maybe just too lazy to continue). She shook her head. “With your human lifespans, you don’t need to worry about something that might happen generations from now. Just relax.”
“Let’s talk about something lighter,” Gawain smoothly changed the subject. “You live in the deep sea—what do you usually do?”
“Sleep,” Tyr answered.
Gawain blinked. “I mean, what do the other, more ‘normal’ sea witches do? You can’t just sleep all day, right?”
“Oh, we do plenty—building houses, raising jellyfish, holding shape-shifting contests,” Tyr counted on her tail fingers. Then she brightened up. “But the most fun thing is digging for squid!”
Gawain was utterly confused. “Digging for squid? What’s that?”
“Digging up giant squid! A kind of…” Tyr frowned, searching for the right words, “renewable natural resource in our area.”
She wagged her tail. “Basically, it’s something that looks like a giant squid—maybe the remains of some ancient creature—huge enough to cover an entire seabed. Its tentacles can regrow on their own. When we dig some up, they grow back after a while. The squid even grows little tentacles that wave hello or dance with us. It’s really fun! We go digging for squid every now and then—oh, and the last time we fought those crazy humans was because they built a smoky, chaotic altar right above our squid digging grounds and kept casting spells that messed up our mining area. We tried negotiating, but it didn’t work, so it ended in a fight.”
Amber, Betty, and Rebecca all looked utterly baffled. Honestly, from a normal human perspective, it was impossible to understand what this sea witch was describing.
“A giant creature’s corpse? Dead but keeps regenerating?” Rebecca blinked. “So… how many people can it feed?”
True to her fallen viscount background, Rebecca’s thought process was spot on. Gawain’s first thought upon hearing the description was also about food—but he was more cautious. A mass of endlessly regenerating flesh probably wasn’t a “safe food source”—especially coming from the strange, terrifying deep sea. Who knew what weird things lurked down there?
In fact, Gawain already considered the sea witches themselves to be one of those “weird things”…
Even Amber couldn’t help but get curious about the sea witches’ strange daily life. She asked, “So, do you dig squid to eat them?”
“Well, mostly we use them as fuel for our magical reactors, but we can eat them too…” Tyr’s expression turned a bit awkward. “The squid meat is packed with energy and tastes great. Since we sea witches don’t have much sense of taste, energy-rich and tasty things are our delicacies. But usually, the squid goes to the reactors first—we just sneak a little for ourselves.”
Gawain was dumbfounded: fuel you can also eat? What kind of thing is this!?
And these deep-sea salty fish actually sneak bites of their own fuel… Are they like kids stealing gasoline?
Just as he imagined, the deep sea was full of strange and bizarre things.
Out of curiosity, Gawain asked Tyr more about the “giant squid.” Gradually, the pieces came together in everyone’s minds:
An ancient creature’s enormous remains, with tentacles stretching for kilometers—like small mountain ranges.
Dead on the seabed for countless years, yet showing no signs of decay and constantly regenerating—though each time it regrows a bit, the sea witches dig it up and burn it (or maybe eat it).
Sometimes small tentacles sprout on the big tentacles, which wave or dance with the sea witches. The sea witches say these little tentacles have a nice chewiness.
Deep-sea creatures living around the giant squid tend to be aggressive and also chewy.
The squid sometimes attracts creatures from far away, which end up dying near its tentacles—those outsiders aren’t chewy at all.
Apparently, Tyr’s main standard for judging deep-sea things is “chewiness”—whether that’s her personal quirk or a sea witch trait, no one knew.
After hearing all this, Gawain couldn’t help but wonder:
What exactly have these salty fish dug up in the sea?
Could it be… an ancient god?
This chilling thought wasn’t just wild speculation. The features Tyr described reminded him too much of the divine flesh he found in the mountain ruins—the god was dead, but the flesh neither rotted nor perished, and it affected the minds of other creatures. Those traits were so unique and striking it was hard not to connect the two.
The deep-sea “giant squid” regenerates, while the divine flesh Gawain found does not—maybe because the crystal cube made by the Gondorian mages suppresses it.
But the giant squid affects many creatures’ minds—why not the sea witches? They not only use it as fuel but also as food… So what exactly are these salty fish made of?
(End of chapter)