The night lay quiet as water. After the hastily ended dinner, the guilty group drifted onto the deck. Samael stood there, staring at the rolling waves, lost in thought.
"I'm telling you, at best we can fish up a skeleton. Where are we supposed to get a living Leviathan whale?"
Orion, looking like a stuffed toy bear, climbed onto the rail with a miserable expression. Resting his chin on his hand, he cast a reproachful glance at Samael.
The Ancient Serpent stroked his chin, completely certain of himself.
"Relax. Since I say it's possible, it's possible. But I'll need someone to help with a small task…"
"No problem! Just tell us what to do!"
At that moment, the seven who had gone ashore—fully aware of their guilt—squeezed out from around the corridor corner. Prince Calydon, leading them, immediately agreed.
"What are you hiding for? I saw every one of you—those who ate the meat, those who touched it. All of you, get out here!"
With Samael's amused scolding, the culprits trudged out from every shadowed corner. More and more people gathered, and the awkward atmosphere from earlier was oddly eased by this strange situation.
"That little girl asleep?"
"Yeah. Completely out. Didn't even need Circe's potion…"
Atalanta shook her head, both helpless and amused.
"Alright then, everyone—time to work. We need this done before sunrise!"
Samael snapped his fingers, his expression carrying a deeper meaning.
Only throughout the long night did the accomplices realize the malice hidden behind that expression.
The foster son of the Goddess of Wisdom claimed he had received divine revelation—that he could, through some method, atone to Areopagus and pray for a miracle.
But in exchange, the ringleader had to dive into the sea to retrieve the Leviathan's bones, while the accomplices had to fend off sea beasts attracted by the smell of blood. After hours of exhausting chaos, they barely managed to gather everything required. Every participant was utterly miserable.
"Alright, disperse. Meleager, you stay. Later, sneak into the girl's room and draw a single drop of blood from her fingertip—don't wake her."
Samael clapped his hands and issued his order. The weary accomplices gave the ringleader a limp pat on the shoulder, their faces full of helpless sympathy, before leaving one after another.
In the end, the gloomy Prince of Calydon had no choice but to force himself through the task. After exerting every ounce of effort, he finally gathered all the required components and handed them to Samael.
"Uh…"
"That's enough. Go sleep. I'll handle the rest."
Samael cut him off before he could speak, dismissing him impatiently. The ringleader hesitated several times, but under the Ancient Serpent's insistence, he could only walk away in dejection.
Judging by his expression, he was likely to spend the rest of the night sleepless.
It wasn't until the last stretch of night that Samael, leaning over the rail, finally yawned. Listlessly, he drew his spear and cut the rope securing the net, letting the whale bones—gathered with so much difficulty—sink back into the depths.
"What are you doing?"
Orion froze, instinctively asking.
"We can't use it anyway. Might as well destroy the evidence."
Samael answered casually. Grinning, he pulled from his pocket a water-blue crystal core, its interior seeming to shimmer with the silhouette of a swimming whale. He rolled it between his fingers.
"This Spirit Core, holding the consciousness of the Magical Beast, is what actually matters. Blood and bones aren't needed at all."
Meanwhile, the Ancient Serpent muttered inwardly. Thankfully, the Argo crew had a habit of collecting spoils. A rare Leviathan Spirit Core like this was naturally preserved with care.
Otherwise, things really wouldn't have ended so neatly.
"Then why did you still make them do all that?"
Orion rolled his eyes as he complained.
Samael let out an irritated snort. "Whether I need it doesn't matter. What matters is that their consciences do. If I don't make them work a little, they won't sleep easy tonight. Besides, they can manage to screw up even basic tasks like gathering fresh water or eating a meal. Don't you think they need to learn something from this?"
He then glanced at the massive shadow of the Argo cast across the sea, his tone carrying a deeper implication.
"And really, taking a bit of a hit might not be a bad thing for them."
The truth was, everything on this journey so far had gone far too smoothly.
So smoothly that the heroes aboard the Argo had begun to grow complacent and full of themselves.
You could see it from the way the advance team so casually decided to "rescue the weak," and how, simply because they couldn't understand her language, they knocked the girl out without a second thought.
And it wasn't just the advance team. Even the ones who stayed behind on the Argo—including himself—could have avoided all this if they had paid a little more attention, woken the girl sooner, and asked her what was going on.
But after so many days of easy success, they'd all lost their sense of caution.
Thinking of this, Samael couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
With his hidden protection, the Argo's heroes had managed to overcome every trial so far with remarkable success.
But because things had gone too smoothly, their tempers and instincts hadn't been honed, and so they stumbled into today's mess by sheer accident.
Fortunately, this was a small problem he could still fix. But what if it had been a real life-or-death crisis?
Heroes, in the end, were still human. They weren't perfect. They carried heavier desires and more obvious flaws than ordinary people.
Take that Calydon prince, for example—truly a classic case of "good intentions causing disaster."
In his original fate, for the sake of fairness in the Calydon Boar Hunt, he ignored all objections and explanations and simply awarded the boar skin to Atalanta.
That decision not only cost him his life, it also made Atalanta the target of everyone's resentment.
And now, something similar was happening again. Maybe fate's curse was pushing things along.
But could the Calydon prince and the seven who landed on the island really blame fate alone?
Not just the prince's misguided kindness—the twin swordsmen's extreme stubbornness, Caenis's reckless arrogance, Heracles's madness and fury, Atalanta's confidence and pride…
All of these were their own weaknesses.
And once the gods exploited them, these flaws could easily become the reasons these heroes met their end.
Moreover, he himself was a Divine Spirit. Even though he treated these heroes as friends, there was no way he could protect them forever.
Letting them take a small lesson now and rein in their temperaments was far better than losing their lives over it later.
They hadn't even reached the Kingdom of Colchis yet, and even with divine blessing, getting too full of themselves would only lead to tragic consequences sooner or later.
By now, Orion—who had already gone through one great voyage—gradually understood Samael's intentions. The mischief in his eyes softened, replaced with a touch of respect and warmth.
This guy really was someone you could entrust yourself to. Maybe now was the time…
Just as Orion was getting caught up in his thoughts, Samael clapped his hands. He tightened his grip around the Spirit Core, his nails piercing his palm. Crimson-gold blood seeped into the Spirit Core before dripping into the sea below.
Extraction of the Magical Beast's Spirit Origin… Flesh proliferation… Structural reconstruction!
As Samael chanted silently, the spreading blood mist rapidly multiplied, forming distinct pieces of flesh, bone, and organs.
In a blink, a gigantic shadow gathered into shape beneath the Argo, though it remained completely motionless—like a living corpse.
Ether Magic Circuits, activate.
Soul Medium Core, activate.
Good. The Authority of the Beast the Mother Goddess split off to me is amplified on the sea. By adapting the Mother of Genesis, I can basically reconstruct the Leviathan whale's original body using its Magical Beast Spirit Origin blueprint.
While he pondered this, the pale-faced Samael slowly loosened his grip. The blood threads clinging to the Spirit Core instantly sank into the forming body below.
"Wuu!"
The massive creature floating in the water twitched, then stabilized. Its long tail swept up waves several meters high as it surfaced with a delighted cry.
"Ah! My whale! My whale came back!"
At that exact moment, the girl who had been sleeping like the dead jolted awake. She wiped the drool from her mouth, eyes shining, and bolted out of the room. With a single leap, she plunged into the deep sea.
"Huh? Where'd the island reef go? It's all gone? Oh well, this way it's even easier to hug!"
Seeing her "chased-off" pet return, the blue-haired girl excitedly swam up to her mount, chattering nonstop about everything she'd experienced the previous night.
What left everyone torn between laughter and tears was how she slurped as she spoke, describing that unforgettable feast to her Leviathan whale.
Fortunately, sea beasts were slow-witted and not too bright. If this one actually understood what had happened to it, it might cough up blood from sheer rage.
Still, with everything resolved, the heroes who'd been tormented all night could finally let out a long breath of relief.
Among them, the most visibly relieved was the utterly exhausted Prince of Calydon.
Seeing how long he'd already suffered, Samael felt a rare flicker of sympathy. He simply offered him a calm, reassuring look and didn't push him any further.
"Hey, are you planning to cross the Storm Sea?"
"Yes!"
Prince Calydon—still barely holding himself together—answered at once.
"Since you treated me to such a great feast, I'll guide you out of that place."
The girl waved her hand and moved forward through the water without waiting for a response.
As white waves splashed behind her, everyone suddenly realized that the lower half of her body beneath the surface had turned into a deep blue fish tail.
Half-human, half-fish. A Sea Emperor's kin. Had they really encountered such a legendary being?
And this girl had even snuck out alone from her settlement, yet she was so weak—clearly not a major Divine Bloodline. It was a miracle she'd survived this long on sheer recklessness.
Only now did the heroes fully grasp what they were looking at, stunned and silently complaining to themselves.
...
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