SMFLS 06

Chapter: 06

6. Hello! My Future Father-in-Law (6)

The snow-white creature had a long, slender body like a sea serpent, while its tail and limbs were plump and stubby. Its smooth white scales reflected the light, shimmering with a faint glow in all five colors.

Its round head was dotted with bright yellow eyes, whose pupils were long and vertical like those of a reptile. No matter how you looked at it, this white lump resembled a lizard.

But… it was talking…?

Lizards couldn’t talk…?

That was common knowledge even a six-year-old baby knew…!

“Do you not have ears? Why are you chewing on my words instead of answering me?”

It even got angry.

Sertisha blinked slowly before answering in bewilderment.

“Huh…? Nooo… Why can you talk…? Even beastmen can’t speak when they’re in their animal forms…”

“Excuse me? Why shouldn’t I be able to talk? Is there some law that says dragons aren’t allowed to speak? Is this a violation of dragon rights or something?”

“……?”

“Oh, dear me~! This tiny little beastman is violating my dragon rights!”

The white lump claiming to be a dragon—or rather, the white lizard—burst into loud, sorrowful sobs.

It went on spouting incomprehensible nonsense about how things hadn’t been like this back in its day. Naturally, Sertisha’s delicate brows furrowed deeply.

“Ugh! Then what are youuu?!”

“Bwaaaaa… Huh? What’s this? You don’t know who I am?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Whaaat…? You’re the one who woke me up! I was sleeping so soundly!”

When Sertisha still failed to understand, the white lizard slapped its tail against the bed in frustration and pointed somewhere with its short, plump arms.

“Oh, you little otter lady! You woke me up with that thing over there!”

The object the lizard pointed at was the five-colored scallop Sertisha had received from Grand Duke Hicaros earlier that day.

The only difference was that the scallop, which had been tightly closed during the day, was now wide open.

Looking more closely, Sertisha noticed a pure white pearl lying beside it. It hadn’t been there just a little while ago.

It looked remarkably similar to the white pearl she had seen in the future.

The moment the white pearl she had searched for so desperately appeared before her eyes, Sertisha’s little heart began to pound.

The white pearl sparkled with a luster just as beautiful as the scallop’s—no, even more beautiful.

While Sertisha was distracted by the pearl, the white lizard slid closer and tapped her knee with its tail, seemingly dissatisfied.

“Heyyyy! Are you ignoring the dragon?! What’s so great about that round little thing, anyway? That’s nothing but the shell of this great Lord Iren!!”

“Huh? Shell?”

“Yes! A shell! It’s merely the vessel I reside in!”

The white lizard, who insisted that it was a dragon, grumbled about how Sertisha didn’t even know something so basic before letting out a deep sigh. Then, as though generously granting her a favor, it nodded and spoke.

“Fine! I’ll let it slide because you’re a baby!!”

“Hmph… Fine. So who are you? I’m Sertisha, the head of the otter beastmen!”

“You’re already the head at barely the size of a strip of dried squid? Hmm~ Kids these days sure grow up fast.”

“Mm… Grandpa went to the stars of the sea. So Tisha has to be the head.”

The white lizard flinched at Sertisha’s words, looking momentarily flustered. Then it gently patted her knee with its tail, as if trying to comfort a child.

“A-ah… W-well, it’s possible to become the head early!! A-anyway! My name is Iren, the Guardian of Light.”

“A Guardian? You’re a Guardian?!”

The very Guardian from the legends?!

One of the Five Guardians born from primordial nature, who had saved and protected the continent?

Sertisha’s eyes grew as round as saucers as she carefully examined the white lizard from head to toe.

No matter how she looked at it…

It looked pretty pathetic…

“What’s with that look?! You’re not looking down on a dragon, are you?!”

“But you’re a little different from what I imagined…”

“Well, I can be different! I’m nothing more than a fragment separated from the Guardian of Light!”

“A fragment?”

“What? You don’t even know that?”

Iren grumbled about how there was apparently nothing Sertisha knew before sitting on its tail and beginning a step-by-step explanation.

Iren was a little… no, quite a lot more talkative than expected.

The explanation continued until Sertisha’s ears practically hurt. In broad strokes, it went something like this.

The Black Goddess, born from the deepest darkness, had corrupted the continent. Light disappeared, and the land gradually turned black.

The sky lost the boundary between day and night, and silence settled over the places where life had once flourished.

To fight the spreading darkness, primordial nature created the Five Guardians.

They tore themselves apart to divide their power, scattering the resulting fragments across the land.

Thus were born the Five Guardians of Five-Colored Light, who waged a long war against the Black Goddess.

However, the Black Goddess’s power was beyond imagination.

It was no wonder that the war continued for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

At long last, the Five Guardians of Five-Colored Light succeeded in sealing the Black Goddess, at the cost of shortening their own lifespans.

And so, that long and brutal war finally came to an end.

The sky grew bright once more, but the world could never return to the way it had been before.

The wounds left behind by the long war became humanity’s burden to bear.

Diseases and curses spread from the blackened, corrupted waters, while magical beasts hunted humans.

But the Guardians did not simply stand by and watch as living beings perished.

After all, humans were beings they had wanted to protect until the very end.

With the last fragments of their power, they bestowed their strength upon their children.

Having exhausted all their power, the Guardians quietly returned to primordial nature.

They left behind only traces of their existence, as though they had never been there at all.

“Ahem! And that’s how this great Lord Iren became a fragment of the Guardian of Light! What do you think? Pretty awesome, right?”

Given how frivolous Iren’s manner of speaking was for a fragment of a Guardian, Sertisha stared at it with the dead-eyed expression of a dried pollock.

“Then, um… why did you come out of a scallop?”

“Because it’s my home, obviously.”

Huh?

Did it just call it its home?

As though wondering why Sertisha would even ask such an obvious question, Iren looked at her. Gradually, Sertisha’s face filled with astonishment.

“Wait, you seriously didn’t know?! That thing is Crendia, the Primordial Sacred Relic!!”

“Crend… ia…? The Primordial Sacred Relic?”

Apparently frustrated by Sertisha’s utterly clueless expression as she tilted her head, Iren pounded its chest with its short, plump arms.

“Oh, dear… You don’t know anything at alllll!! O Source, why have you bestowed such a trial upon meeeee~?!”

“Ugh! Tisha is still a baby, so it’s okay if I don’t know!”

“Hmph… I’m only letting it slide because you’re barely the size of a strip of dried squid!”

“Mm-hmm!”

Seeing Sertisha nod so cheerfully, Iren let out a huge sigh before continuing its explanation.

“Guardians born from primordial nature possess the power of nature in its purest form. Even the tiny fragments separated from them contain primordial power. How do you think humans could handle something like that? They’d surely go mad or fall apart!”

“Gasp!”

So the fragment was much scarier than she had thought?!

The pearl she had wanted to keep simply because it was so pretty and white suddenly seemed terrifying.

“That’s why the Primordial Guardians gave fragments of their power, along with Crendia, to the humans they loved most. Those humans became the Guardians’ holy maidens and protected the continent alongside their descendants.”

“The ones they loved most?”

“Yep. I don’t really know who that person was, but apparently, the Guardians—and even their children—cherished that human very much.”

“Ohhh. So? What exactly is Crendia?”

“Crendia… Well, you could say it neutralizes the fragments containing raw, unprocessed power. Something like that…”

Iren went on to explain that Crendia, the Primordial Sacred Relic created by the Guardians, stabilized the raw fragments of power and allowed the full strength of a Guardian to be drawn out.

The Guardians had personally chosen the relic’s first owner. After that, however, Crendia would choose its own master to prevent it from falling into the hands of someone who intended to abuse its power.

“That’s why I’ve been sleeping inside Crendia all this time, waiting for its master to appear.”

“So you really were using Crendia, that Primordial Sacred Relic, as your house…”

Sertisha stared at Iren, who had apparently been living inside a Primordial Sacred Relic as though it were an ordinary home, with utter disbelief.

“What’s wrong with that? I sleep and rest in there, so it’s basically a house, isn’t it?”

“Hmph. Who said anything?”

“Your eyes looked like dried pollock, so that’s why…”

“They didn’t! Grandpa said my eyes were as pretty as a baby dumbo octopus!”

“Dumbo… What? How pretty can an octopus’s eyes possibly be?!”

“Ugh! You don’t know anything! Baby dumbo octopuses are so cute!! Their heads are round and squishy, and their fins that look like ears are just adorable!!”

“Argh! I don’t know, I don’t know! You’ve become Crendia’s master, so you’re responsible for me from now on!!”

Having unexpectedly acquired a white fragment of a Guardian, Sertisha bombarded Iren with all sorts of questions.

Q. Why did I become the master of Crendia?

A. Because you’re a descendant of the Ritea family, which carries the blood of the Guardians, you’re qualified to become Crendia’s master!

Q. What’s so good about becoming Crendia’s master?

A. You can draw out the Guardians’ power more strongly and use the authority residing within the pearl!

Q. What is the pearl’s power?

A. The white pearl contains the authority of “Domination”! As the central piece among the five fragments, it can contain and use the supernatural abilities of the races descended from the blood of all Five Guardians!

Q. Is it possible… to find someone’s missing son…?

A. If you make proper use of your ability, it’s totally possible!

The moment Sertisha heard the answer to her final question, her mind began racing.

At the same time, her eyes gradually began to sparkle with renewed life as she gazed at Iren.

Faced with those excessively shining eyes, Iren swallowed nervously.

Am I… totally screwed…?