The pool was clean. The cove was silent, save for the normal sound of waves. Nerida, the sea spirit, slowly pushed herself to her feet. She was weak, her form still faint, but stable. She stared at the clear water, then at Kaito, her expression unreadable.
"It's really gone," she said, her voice flat with disbelief. "The fishermen... they can return. The fish will be clean again."
Kaito simply nodded. He looked at the white flower from the Dryad, still glowing softly in his hand. Its job here was done. He tucked it back into his tunic.
"You should go back to Seabreeze," he said. "Tell them the job is finished."
Nerida didn't move. Her gaze was fixed on him, not with gratitude, but with a deep, wary curiosity. "They will want to know how. They will ask what monster you slew. What do I tell them?"
"The truth," Kaito said. "The source of the corruption has been removed."
"That is not the truth," she countered softly. "The truth is that a man walked into this cursed place and made the impossible look easy. The truth is that I don't know what you are, and that frightens me more than the black water ever did."
She turned and, without another word, began to walk unsteadily back towards the path to Seabreeze, leaving him alone in the cove.
Kaito watched her go. Another problem solved. Another person left afraid of him. He felt the weight of the A-rank completion in his quest log, but it felt meaningless.
[Sage, the corruption here was different. It wasn't a mutation. It was a... a hole.]
[Analysis: Affirmative. The phenomenon was a localized breakdown of natural order, a persistent metaphysical anomaly. Your intervention did not 'cleanse' it in a conventional sense. You enforced stability upon an unstable zone.]
He had patched a leak in reality itself. And he had done it without a second thought.
He looked out at the now-clean sea. Somewhere out there was the sunken city of Val, where the Coral-King had fallen. This black pool was just a symptom of whatever happened there. He had cleared the symptom, but the disease was still out there, beneath the waves.
He had completed his quest, but he hadn't finished the job. The real source was still waiting. And he was the only one who could dive in and face it.
-----
CH68.5 The Calm Between
The walk back to Seabreeze was quiet. The oppressive feeling was gone, replaced by the normal, brisk sea wind. As Kaito approached the town, he saw the change immediately. The fishermen were no longer huddled in despair. They were gathered around Nerida on the dock, their postures alert, their faces a mix of hope and shock.
They parted for him as he approached, their eyes wide. They didn't cheer. They just stared, as if he were a storm that had passed through and left calm in its wake.
Nerida stood at the center of them. She looked stronger now, drawing strength from the clean sea. She met his gaze and gave a single, solemn nod. "It is done. The waters are pure."
An older fisherman, the one who had first warned him, stepped forward. He looked from Nerida's clear eyes back to Kaito. "The black water... the song... it's truly gone?"
"It's gone," Kaito confirmed, his voice even.
"How?" another man blurted out. "What kind of magic was that?"
Kaito had prepared for this. "The corruption was a spiritual sickness. I severed its connection to this place." It was the same technical truth he always used. It was all he could give them.
It seemed to be enough. The fishermen didn't understand, but they believed the result. They began talking excitedly amongst themselves, already planning to mend their nets and launch their boats at first light.
Nerida moved to his side, her voice low, for him alone. "They are grateful. But they are simple men. They see a powerful mage who solved their problem. They do not see what I see."
"And what do you see?" Kaito asked, though he knew the answer.
"I see a seal," she said quietly, looking out at the horizon. "You have sealed the wound on the shore. But the knife that made it is still buried deep. The Coral-King did not just 'fall'. He was struck down. Something is in the deep, in the city. And now that you have drawn its attention by closing its wound... it will notice you."
She was not warning him out of concern for his safety. She was warning him that a larger storm was coming, and he was now at its center.
"I will handle it," he said. It was not a boast. It was a simple statement of fact, as inevitable as the tide.
He collected his reward from the town's headman—a heavy purse of gold coins that felt meaningless in his hand. The official A-rank completion would be logged when he returned to Whitepeak.
But he wasn't going back to Whitepeak. Not yet.
He stood on the cliff edge, looking out at the vast, grey ocean. The real quest wasn't over. The Sunken City of Val was out there. The source of the corruption was there. And the Dryad's flower, still safe in his pocket, was his only guide. He would find a boat. He would go into the deep. He would find what was left of the Coral-King, and he would finish this.