"Lord Anelli!"
The first thing I saw upon opening my eyes was Xenon, holding me up as if embracing me.
I quickly steadied myself, putting strength into my body that had been teetering as if about to collapse at any moment. Fortunately, with Xenon and Samuel's support, I didn't end up rolling around in an unsightly manner.
'At most a few minutes.'
Perhaps even tens of seconds.
It wasn't difficult to realize that I had lost consciousness for merely an instant. But if I had been caught by that dream....
Having straightened my posture, I shook off their support and strode toward the lakeside.
Rusalka, whose upper body was exposed having walked out quite a bit from the shore, was looking at me in bewilderment.
"H... how...?"
Ignoring my pants getting soaked, I marched right up to it and swung my fist in one motion.
Thud!
Rusalka's jaw, standing there with a foolish expression, whipped to the side. My clumsy punch didn't even knock Rusalka down.
However, thinking that I could at least land a solid hit on the defenselessly standing Rusalka, I struck the same spot with my fist once more.
Thump!
Whether it was worth gritting my teeth and swinging with all my might, this time Rusalka fell backward.
"...."
I stepped firmly on Rusalka's chest area as it fell backward with a splash, looking down at its face with cold eyes.
If it had at least been in the form of the Crown Prince, or if it hadn't shown its face at all, I wouldn't have been this angry.
But the illusion just now was excessive beyond tolerance.
"Presumptuous."
At my cold murmur, Pallides was the first to snap out of it.
[C, Captain?]
Pallides rushed to my side in urgency. I drew the medium sword hanging at his waist.
"What... how...?"
Perhaps due to the rippling lake water, the face of Rusalka lying in the water looked distorted. I couldn't hear properly either since it was speaking underwater.
I adjusted my grip on the sword, aiming at Rusalka's body.
"W, wait! Lord Anelli!"
"What is this suddenly!"
Just as I was about to drive the sword straight down, Xenon and Samuel cried out in alarm and threw themselves at my arms.
Mori, who had come to his senses late, also crawled over grunting and wrapped around my ankle.
[J, just a moment! Captain!]
The Dullahans, frozen in place unable to understand what was happening, weren't directly trying to stop me, but they too looked surprised.
Restrained unable to move while still holding the sword, I let out a long sigh.
"This thing, in my illusion just now, called me 'the Empress it loves' while wearing Maxel's face."
Why one would never wake up after falling to Rusalka's attack.
Having experienced it myself, I understood immediately. Rusalka's mental manipulation showed the victim the future they most desperately longed for as a dream.
So that they themselves wouldn't want to wake from the dream.
However, for some reason, my dream was projected from a wish before my head was cut off, so it didn't move me in the slightest. Rather, it only provoked anger.
Especially Maxel as Emperor!
I absolutely couldn't tolerate that. It was truly the worst dream, enough to make me nauseous.
Whether they heard my calm answer, the strength drained from Samuel and Xenon's hands that had been tightly gripping my arms.
"I will dismember its limbs."
Samuel pointed his sword at Rusalka.
"Does curse work on monsters? We shouldn't kill it instantly. We need to make it suffer."
Xenon also spoke irritably with magic undulating around him.
Seeing the two react even more fiercely than me, the anger that had surged up in me instead subsided.
I lowered the sword I had raised with all my might and looked down at my palm. The palm that had absorbed the pendant in the dream.
This isn't all of it. This was really just a part.
"Let go for now. I need to retrieve the pendant first."
It seemed what made Rusalka's illusion powerful was the pendant containing the authority of death.
The authority of death was originally meant to give rest to life, and what this monster gifted its victims was an illusion they didn't want to wake from, so they were mixed in a similar context and exerted a powerful effect.
I returned the sword to Pallides and grabbed Rusalka's collar where it lay in the water, hoisting it up.
Surprisingly, Rusalka was that small and light. Light enough that I could lift it with one hand.
Going by weight alone, one might mistake it for a bundle of straw.
When I lifted Rusalka to my eye level, its hair tangled like seaweed hung down long.
The hair was so long it exceeded its height by far, with the ends floating on the water's surface.
Seeing the short stature and build with hair disgustingly long, Xenon made a sound of distaste.
But right now, only one thing was important to me.
"Speak. Where are the remaining pendants?"
If this creature had the pendant, its body would have surely glowed with light. But no matter how I looked, I couldn't find anything that appeared to be the light of authority.
I'll quickly retrieve the pendant, wake the Empress from her sleep, and get rid of this unpleasant thing.
Having firmly resolved, I called out to Rusalka in a sinister voice.
"Hey."
"S... save..."
"What?"
"Save... me..."
Frowning as I listened to Rusalka's words, it kept opening and closing its mouth, trying to voice words that wouldn't come out.
Though the latter part was close to the sound of breathing air, I could roughly understand what it was trying to say.
Samuel and Xenon, who had been listening to Rusalka's words with suspicious expressions, spoke up without either one going first.
"I'll just kill it."
"You said they'd wake from the dream if killed, so we can just kill it as the paladin said."
It was a rare moment where the two's opinions aligned.
At that vicious killing intent, Rusalka trembled with its gaunt body.
[C, Captain! No! It's a precious life...]
Mori called out to me with eyes looking ready to cry at any moment.
[You said the nature of life is good! Even if betrayed ten times, you must not lose t, trust, Captain...]
"First of all, I wasn't the one who said that."
Come to think of it, Ganic said something like that too when he was deceived and used by humans.
What should I do about the past captain who instilled this twisted ideology?
Pushing back my bangs, I spoke to Mori with a sigh.
"What I told you was, whether you resent it or not, do as you please with your own heart."
Mori, who had been worrying with a crying face, answered hesitantly.
[Y, you saying I should do as I please means if there's something I want to sympathize with, I should sympathize...]
...That was also true.
I hesitated at Mori's unexpectedly persuasive rebuttal. Realizing her words were working, Mori spoke with even more strength.
[Maybe someone lured this one. It's a monster that can speak human language!]
Given the case with the young Lizardman, the assumption that humans might have lured a monster to harm the Empress wasn't entirely far-fetched.
But that too depends on the monster, doesn't it.
"Mori."
I sighed and glanced at Rusalka whose collar I was gripping. Rusalka was breathing laboriously as if in pain.
Though it looked bizarre, being small and thin made it seem easy to sympathize with.
How pathetic must it look to Mori who had sympathized with Rusalka from just one word about wanting rest.
But to my eyes, that wasn't the case.
"Everything has its nature."
In those empty eye sockets devoid of eyeballs, the eerily flickering darkness looked sufficiently cunning.
Above all. Since earlier, a sound grating on my ears had been ceaselessly coming.
"Mori. I won't stop you from sympathizing, but you need to relearn how to cull the rotten ones first."
The quiet pond that wasn't quiet, those squelching sounds moving bit by bit from deep within the water's surface.
They had been still at first, but now they were waiting in the depths, ready to spring up at any moment.
The ripples gently bumping against my legs proved their movements writhing underwater.
"Is this really the one you met?"
At my question, Mori's eyes went wide. Mori, who had been unconditionally defending Rusalka, seemed to realize something was strange late.
Mori, examining Rusalka with surprised eyes, answered slowly in a dazed tone.
[...No.]
I put strength into my hand gripping Rusalka's collar.
It felt like wringing out laundry soaked with water.
Rusalka's body that had been moving like a swaying willow branch went completely limp.
When I released my grip, Rusalka's body plummeted down and created a splash. Having confirmed Rusalka's body sinking to the bottom, I lifted my gaze forward.
"Can Dullahans swim?"
At my calm question, Pallides was the first to confess quickly.
[Sorry, Captain.]
Following him, Zigor and Minte also showed uncharacteristically lacking confidence regarding swimming.
[Should we just call Ganic?]
Zigor's irresponsible remark that since he can transform into a sea turtle, he would obviously know how to swim, earned him a rebuke from Minte asking 'then can you fly around even after becoming a Dullahan?'
Anyway, it meant they were all hopeless at swimming.
If I told them to transform into Dullahans and clear some trees to make an open space to fight?
'They won't wait for these ones to make a battlefield.'
Round heads started rising one by one on the quiet, still water surface.
At first they appeared sporadically, but their numbers were increasing.
I had guessed roughly, but there were more than expected.
'So I have to find it among these?'
And in this pond where fighting is difficult.
It wasn't so much fear of Rusalka as it was clearly going to be endlessly troublesome, making my chest feel tight.
I muttered as if lamenting.
"I didn't know Rusalkas lived in groups."
They said it was a rare monster, but I guess this neighborhood's location must be good.