"...Hup!"
The spear launched with a short shout pierced the mermaid beside Mr. Heathcliff.
It was a precarious bit of support; if things went wrong, it could have hit Mr. Heathcliff too. But after that happened more than five times, Mr. Heathcliff stopped paying attention to the spear altogether.
In fact... he almost seemed to welcome it. Had he realized that, appearances aside, it was actually helping quite a bit? How boring.
With a more stable offensive than usual, he beat the mermaids down like a man playing whack-a-mole, and before long the prisoners had finished off all the first mermaids.
Hah. I should rest a little too. Spear throwing takes a lot more stamina than I expected.
When I sat down on the boat and settled into a decent spot, Mr. Heathcliff's attention turned back to Ms. Ishmael.
Now that the fight was over... it was time to settle what had happened before.
That sudden move Ms. Ishmael made, slamming into that whale. I mean, I figured there was some meaning to it.
"All right... I get it. These things pretending to be land masses were all whales, and I understand that mermaids pop out of those hole-riddled things. But... why go out of your way to fight a battle you could just avoid? Huh? Stress relief... or something like that? Like whack-a-mole?"
"Of course not. This is simply the only method I know."
"...I'll choose to believe you said that because you were planning to explain it."
Mm... I'm curious too. I trust her, but that doesn't mean my curiosity has gone anywhere.
She must have had her own judgment, so she forced this course of action through. Whether the others understood it or not was another matter entirely.
Unfortunately, the only people who could understand something without hearing the explanation were the odd ones out—people like Ms. Ryoshu and Mr. Meursault.
Of course, Dante was not included in that category of oddballs. ...Though if you think about it, Dante is probably the oddest of them all.
"Ha... I didn't think I'd really end up doing this either... Well... it was the kind of story people told like a legend."
"A legend...?"
After Sinclair asked back, Ms. Ishmael began her explanation in earnest.
It was... a fairly interesting story. At least, I thought so.
"There are many people who drift around the Great Lake and make their living here... and as many kinds of lakes as there are divided waters, I suppose. For sailors, stories about those lakes get passed down orally and become legends. This... 'dark, gray lake that ripples while floating.' There was a legend here too, one that was sung about in little tunes."
Legend. Oral tradition. Stories passed from mouth to mouth across the Great Lake—stories I don't know in this present moment.
One of them. Probably a tale tied to the pale whale, slipped from her lips.
"'Strike to open the space hidden in the sea fog. Make the whales cry to find the pale color. Bring the core to light. When the whales' cries are prepared, it shall be revealed.'"
"...So what in the world does that mean?"
"It means that if you wake the hole whales in this lake like we're doing now and catch all the mermaids, the path to the pale whale will open."
Hmm... interesting. I don't know what the hole whales and the pale whale have to do with each other, though.
The mermaids seem to be of a similar type... but what kind of connection makes them appear like this?
Excessive knowledge is pain, and yet also something addictive that can't be stopped. I suppose that's why I, too, keep prying into things like this even while knowing where it ends.
Rationally speaking, legends like this make no sense... but when has anything in the City ever worked rationally?
The least rational thing in the City right now is the Singularity that makes up the City itself.
Of course, there are people who can't understand that sort of thing. Mr. Heathcliff, for instance.
"So... you're telling me to believe that? You believe it too. Huh? Hey, I never thought I'd be saying something like this in my life, but..."
Mr. Heathcliff stared straight at Ms. Ishmael. Then he threw out something I truly hadn't expected.
"Are you an idiot?"
"...Pfft."
Hey, Ms. Rodion. Don't laugh. I'm holding it in too.
"Hah... hey. What does waking up whales have to do with that thick fog lifting? It has to make at least some sense, doesn't it?"
"It's remarkable to see Mr. Heathcliff arguing causality like this."
"Shut up for a second... I'm being serious."
Should I clap for him? Clap clap.
It was a stupid thing to say, sure, but a stupid thing with some plausibility behind it. For Mr. Heathcliff, that was a huge improvement.
What happened to the man who normally cut straight to the core with instinct and no logic? He'll get shut down immediately, of course.
"...And what about the fact that if we don't get out of the lake in time, the waves will come? Does that make sense?"
"What?"
"And the fact that we can't sail straight to the designated location, can't just turn around and go back the way we came, and have to wander all over the place—does that make sense? I told you from the start. Don't look for common sense in the Great Lake. That's how things work here. It's just like that."
"...Fine, that part's true enough. But that still doesn't make those rigid City rules—coordinates and all that—anything like some vague song. You expect me to believe that?"
Song or rule, it's all the same in the end. If a large number of people verify it clearly, confirm the conditions, and define it, then it becomes a rule.
If a small number of people spread what they heard and saw as rumor, then it becomes a song.
Whether it's a song or a rule, if you trace it back to its source, it's all the same.
And if I think about the ship Ms. Ishmael rode on... that song probably isn't without basis.
...Is Mr. Heathcliff's logical thinking incapable of going that far?
"Because I saw it and experienced it myself."
"......"
"Long ago, a foolish young sailor who knew nothing boarded that ship with his own two hands and realized for himself that the legend was true. That's how it was! That's how I came face to face with the pale whale."
End of persuasion. She was an experienced hand who had gone after the pale whale before. There's no way there wasn't a basis for it.
Still, the world is full of people who can understand something with their heads but not with their hearts. The prisoners weren't any different, so they probably only accepted it after hearing her out.
I'm not all that different either... I've just gotten used to it by now.
"...I really don't like you."
"Likewise."
"I hate just about everything about this whole mess... but at least I know you're not the type to lie or spout nonsense just to win an argument."
"......"
"Go on, then. Finish it. Swing that bat and smash those mole-looking bastards all you want, at least."
After saying that, Mr. Heathcliff turned away from her. I suppose that meant he was done talking.
I'd wondered if I should step in and stop them... but maybe it was better to leave them alone. Their relationship seemed a little more civil now.
"I've come to accept it too. But... next time, if there's a reason like that, I'd appreciate it if you told us first."
"...I'll try."
"In a way, I suppose it's good that we now know the direction for certain."
"...Yes. Then let's set out toward the next whale."
"All hands, board!"
At Ms. Otis's order, the prisoners slowly began boarding the boat.
Haa... how many more do we have to catch? I hate how much my arms hurt.
One whale to go... two... ah, there are way too many. Well, of course there are, if the whole lake is that kind of zone.
Under Ms. Ishmael's lead, the boat began heading toward all those hole whales.
The number of mermaids we met inside them was... well, what's there to say? Even if there were only one per hole, it would easily be several dozen...
After a certain point, the prisoners were beating them down almost mechanically.
For a long while... mechanically....
Whack
It was somewhere around the time we'd gone through more than ten of those island-like things... maybe more than twenty. I wasn't keeping count.
After that sequence of work-like labor finally ended, Ms. Otis's voice rang out.
"All hands, board!"
...Ahhh... next one... wait, we've been there, and there too... huh? Have we gone around them all?
Once my dazed brain started working again, the situation became clear.
Every hole whale in my field of vision had already been visited, and... the fog is... lifting? It's over!
"...Indeed, the sea fog is lifting as though it has been split apart."
Mr. Yi Sang's words confirmed that this was the last one.
...Did Ms. Ishmael say this was the last one earlier? I think she did. Was I that out of it? Maybe I'm just too tired.
Ah... is this the backlash from overusing my eye earlier, or that E.G.O's ability? It doesn't hurt thanks to the painkillers, but... I feel sluggish.
"Haa... at last."
Right. I should shake off sleep quickly. The real game starts now, and there's no point in being exhausted already.
To steady myself, I splashed lake water onto my face as if washing up.
It felt disgusting... but it did help wake me up.
I forced my drooping eyelids open and looked across the lake.
That lake was... where the pale whale was waiting.
A faint sense of fear welled up. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but if I were about to meet a monster like that, I doubt any living thing could completely suppress fear.
...The surface of the lake I glanced at all of a sudden was terrifyingly still.
Like... the night before a storm.
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