"Let's start with that altar first?"
Freya and Felter, along with Prince, all nodded repeatedly.
'Okay!'
"Just the word 'altar' sounds kind of evil and ominous!", As she spoke, Freya wrinkled her nose in disgust, a truly deep disgust.
She glanced at Asher with worried eyes, "You didn't run into any danger, did you?"
As she spoke, Freya's gaze swept up and down Asher's body, examining the exposed parts to see if there were any visible injuries.
"I'm fine," Asher shook his head, "I guess I had a bit of luck."
After a pause, Asher added in a somewhat relieved tone, "It's a good thing I didn't let you all go down."
Freya, who had almost gone down, looked at Asher with curiosity.
'Tell us in detai, what do you mean?'
"I didn't expect it to be an altar either... Anyway, the moment I went inside, a ton of information flooded into my mind, like automatic input, like force-fed education," Asher gestured with his hands to help them understand.
"Then I realized, it was an altar."
"Used to suppress evil beings? Aberrants? Anyway, the terminology is vague, but its main function is suppression."
Although the explanation was a bit unclear, when they thought about the black mud-like thing they'd seen earlier, Felter and Freya immediately got what Asher meant.
And were somewhat shocked.
"Wait a sec?", Freya widened her eyes in disbelief, "So that thing, the mirage pearl or whatever, isn't a treasure of their kind, but instead it's used to..."
Freya hadn't forgotten the nonsense the unicorn had told them yesterday.
Asher nodded, "The mirage pearl isn't a treasure of their race. On the contrary, it's used to suppress them, preventing them from fully leaving the island."
"However, the mirage pearl's power weakens over time."
That's why Asher had nearly reeled the thing up before.
"That box jellyfish...", Felter seemed to recall something and looked at Asher.
Asher nodded.
Exactly, that's why the box jellyfish was chasing the unicorn, also known as the sea mirage.
"Wait, wait, wait...", Felter held his head in both hands, question marks practically floating above him, and his eyes nearly shaped like question marks too.
"If the box jellyfish and this... thing, whatever it is, it's not good, are enemies."
"And we're also enemies with this thing."
"Then theoretically, the enemy of my enemy is... a friend?", Even as he said it, Felter's voice was dripping with doubt.
'Calling the box jellyfish a friend... ew!'
Just thinking about it gave them goosebumps all over.
But on the flip side, isn't that kind of awesome?
The box jellyfish.
You have to know, that's the box jellyfish.
No human Beast Tamer has ever conquered a box jellyfish.
If they could actually become friends with a box jellyfish, Felter's mind was already filled with a mess of codes.
But the others weren't so distracted.
"Don't forget how we ended up on this island," Freya folded her hands over her chest, voice flat as if she were dead.
Felter: "..."
'Oh... oh oh!'
He had almost forgotten about that.
Now that she mentioned it, he remembered.
How else could they have ended up here?
Of course... of course it was because they were running for their lives from the box jellyfish.
Felter fell into silence again, "...So doesn't that mean we're also enemies of the box jellyfish?"
"That's not right!"
That universal formula just broke down.
"So what else did Professor Asher discover at the altar?", Freya wanted to roll her eyes at Felter but ultimately decided it wasn't worth the energy.
She decisively ignored Felter, pretending she didn't hear his noise no matter how much he shouted.
Asher chuckled.
"Professor Asher must know something," What surprised Felter was that even his own brother seemed smarter than him at this moment.
Prince crossed his arms, striking a pose that looked very similar to Freya's, except he was practically twisting his body into a worm-like position on the ground.
Felter: '...My eyes!'
"Didn't Professor Asher say earlier that the reason the box jellyfish was chasing us was probably because of him?"
Felter: "Huh?"
He blinked.
Freya also widened her eyes abruptly, as if she had just remembered that part.
"I thought Asher was just making an excuse for you...", Felter looked resentfully at his brother.
Asher: "...Ahem."
"This actually does have something to do with me."
"The altar's function is to suppress, to bind, to prevent these creatures from moving too far away from the island."
"Even if they change forms and try to escape underwater, they'll be forcibly teleported back to the island."
Whether the one that bit Asher's hook was the unicorn or one of the other two small horses, Asher wasn't entirely sure.
But one thing he was sure of:
The reason it desperately bit onto his hook was to use the contact with Asher to break free from the mirage pearl's constraint.
Unfortunately, the mirage pearl was strong.
But the fishing rods that Old Hank prepared weren't quite up to par.
Anyway, to Asher it was just a misunderstanding.
But to an aberrant that had finally found a chance to escape, it was despair.
"To prevent the altar from being destroyed, any creature other than designated targets that dares to approach the altar will be executed," When Asher got to the last two words, his voice dropped.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
In unison, the others all turned to look at Asher.
Obviously, they all thought of the same thing.
"Professor Asher!"
"Are you alright?"
"Hurry, take off your clothes and let us check! Don't be shy!", As he said this, Prince reached out to strip Asher's clothes.
"No, no, no," Asher quickly pulled his clothes tight, "It's not that serious, really."
"Execution means execution... If something had really happened, it wouldn't just be a couple of little cuts," Asher's voice wasn't loud, but to the others it rang like a thunderclap.
They hesitated for a moment, then let go of Asher's clothes and chose to believe him.
No problem.
Asher is definitely fine.
Otherwise, who's the guy standing in front of them now?
He couldn't be Asher's ghost, right?
There's no way the world is that absurd.
Asher chuckled, "So I guess I was lucky. Good thing I was the one who went down."
Freya suddenly didn't feel tired at all.
She sat up straight without hesitation and rolled her eyes at Asher, "Good? What do you mean good? You nearly had an accident!"
"You couldn't have complained a little more when you got back?"
"You don't need to shoulder everything by yourself."
Felter nodded repeatedly.
'Exactly!'
Seeing how much they cared, Asher couldn't help but laugh again, "Alright, alright, I understand. It's not that I didn't want to complain."
"I only found out about all this after entering the altar."
He meant the sudden memory upload.
"The altar, or rather, the only entity that the mirage pearl acknowledges as a valid contact..."
Before Asher finished his sentence.
The three around him were already deep in thought.
"Box jellyfish," Prince answered first.
Before the others could respond or even think it through, Freya and Felter: "?"
'Wait a minute?'
'Doesn't that answer sound a little crazy?'
But thinking deeper... maybe not that crazy after all?
The mirage pearl and the box jellyfish are closely linked.
They even seem to be on the same side.
The one who can contact the mirage pearl and be recognized by it, is the box jellyfish. Think about it, the logic checks out, right?
'If...'
The group once again turned in unison to look at Asher.
This time.
Their gazes were no longer filled with concern, but shock and disbelief.
Only the box jellyfish can approach the altar.
Any other being would be executed.
The person himself might not have realized it.
But Asher had entered that altar.
It connects the dots.
See the pattern?
Asher... box jellyfish... since they landed on the island, Asher never released anything, but now there's a soft little jellyfish lying in his arms like a slime hibernating for the winter...
"What the fu*k!"
"Holy sh*t!"
"This world is fake!"
"Asher, hurry and tell us my brother's just making stuff up."
A thunderclap out of nowhere.
Nothing short of that.
Under their shocked and panicked stares, Asher slowly said, "Mm... half correct?"
"...Huh?"
Freya and Felter's rising excitement was like being doused with cold water, instantly freezing.
'Half correct?'
'What do you mean half correct?'
'How can you half guess this right?'
"Hmm...", Prince, surprisingly calm, said, "Then I've got nothing."
When Asher said he was only half right, Prince looked a little disappointed.
"Could it be... what that thing said, about the King of the Box Jellyfish?", Prince sounded like he was just guessing.
But Asher couldn't help stealing a few more glances at him.
Is he not?
'Is this guy smart, or just a doofus?'
Now Asher wasn't quite sure himself.
"But wasn't that thing a bad guy?", Sure enough, Felter stroked his chin and said, "So the information it gave shouldn't be very reliable, right?"
Freya nodded, "Not necessarily? Some parts might be true, some parts might be false. But which parts are which..."
'Tsk! Now that's hard to say.'
That damned thing never intended to make things easy for them.
Thinking back, Freya felt she'd gone too easy on it earlier. She should've found more ways to make those black-mud-like things suffer.
Too bad, they died too fast.
Black Mud: "..."
'Thanks a lot!'
Freya: 'No need to thank me! That's just what I do.'
"Ahem ahem...", Asher coughed lightly, then looked down and saw the pink jellyfish in his arms. He smiled slightly, "The title 'King of the Box Jellyfish' isn't quite right. You can think of it as a mutated box jellyfish."
Asher quietly swapped the term.
King? It was indeed a king.
But saying it out loud didn't feel right.
The King of the Box Jellyfish, in the human world, in the jellyfish colony, was almost killed by its own kind.
That sounds like a tongue twister, huh?
But seriously, who would believe that if you said it? No one.
Dominance over its kind is something humans take for granted when it comes to transcendent beasts.
The value of the box jellyfish is obvious, and anyone with eyes can see it.
If people knew that a human Beast Tamer possessed the King of the Box Jellyfish, what would they do?
Asher didn't know.
He couldn't say.
But one thing's for sure.
Asher didn't believe the box jellyfish was suitable, or capable, of forming a human contract.
Just in terms of strength alone, humans didn't have what it took to conquer a box jellyfish.
Until then, keeping a respectful distance wasn't a bad idea, right?
So Asher had to deny the king thing.
When in doubt, blame mutation.
"This is really... this is really...", Even so, upon hearing Asher's words, Felter couldn't help but stutter.
He looked at Asher, then at the little jellyfish in Asher's arms, and finally gave a thumbs up, "You're awesome!"
Box jellyfish, even if it's not a king, even if it's just a mutated one, it's still a box jellyfish.
At that moment, in Felter's eyes, not even the jellyfish's soft pink color could mask its overwhelming kingly aura.
That's right.
That's the kind of presence.
The king of the ocean.
The untouchable overlord of the open seas.
"But this little thing looks so cute, so dreamy...", Freya couldn't help but mumble, "Is this really the box jellyfish?"
"Are we sure there isn't something wrong somewhere?"
But no matter how she looked at it, something just didn't feel right.
"I told you, it's mutated. The little jellyfish's case is special, it doesn't have strong offensive power, and it no longer has a toxic attribute," Asher rolled his eyes a little and spoke very seriously.
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