I bet that long tail could also be used as a weapon! This guy is definitely a carnivore.
However, the creature didn’t so much as look at us; it just kept swimming gracefully on by.
It sure is big, though, huh? It’s practically the size of a cruise ship! Oh, I know! It’s a living warship!
The creature showed no sign of intending to attack, so I asked Sache to swim up alongside it, and I even jumped on its back at one point, but no matter what I did, the creature didn’t even seem to notice we existed.
“…Neema, aren’t you scared?”
“Not at all! Isn’t it wonderful being able to see unknown creatures up close?!”
I suppose I can only feel this way because I have the assurance of the special ability I received from God, preventing me from being attacked by any living creatures.
If someone ordered me to walk right up to a carnivorous beast on Earth, I’d be plenty afraid then! No matter how tame they may seem, animals were ultimately ruled by their primal instincts and didn’t always behave as humans might wish. You might be prepared for the possibility of being squeezed to death by a huge reticulated python, but even a simple housecat could do considerable damage with its claws and teeth if provoked. And if those wounds became infected, they might even prove life-threatening.
But the thing I was most grateful for when it came to the power I’d received from God was that I could get close to animals without causing them distress. That made it possible to observe their natural behavior in the wild, not the way they reacted to the presence of humans.
However, this time, based on the large whale-like creature’s complete lack of reaction, I had a sneaking suspicion that Sache and Euche were somehow concealing our presence. Lars and Sol often concealed their presence when I was playing with animals to avoid scaring the life out of the poor creatures, so I knew it was possible.
We left the forest and continued. I left the choice of destination up to Sache.
The ocean floor was made of sand, and there wasn’t much to see but small schools of fish for a while until large boulders started appearing with increasing frequency.
But there’s something odd about those boulders… They look unusually smooth…
Unable to comprehend what I was seeing, I asked Sache to get a little closer, but she jerked her head to the side in response as if saying, “Look over there.”
In the direction Sache had indicated, I spotted something that had no business being at the bottom of the ocean.
“Is that a… statue? In the middle of the ocean?” I asked.
“It looks pretty old.”
As Daux had said, the presumed statue was cracked in several places and looked seriously worn down. If it was a statue, the preservation spell that had undoubtedly been cast on it when it was made had already long expired.
“Is this supposed to be the Goddess?”
Due to the advanced stage of erosion, it was impossible to make out the facial features or details of the figure’s clothing, but it was clear that this was a depiction of a woman with long hair.
The Goddess was a common motif found in all kinds of works of art, so I thought it likely that this might also be a statue of her.
“But the item she’s holding isn’t right…”
The Goddess was typically depicted as holding “this world” in her right hand and “the world of the dead” in her left hand.
In religious paintings, however, she was sometimes shown interacting with dragons or with her arms outspread, bestowing her blessings upon mankind. Apparently, there were even paintings depicting the Goddess fighting with a sword. Over time, the items the Goddess was shown holding had changed.
As for this statue, it was holding… Or rather, it was lifting a ship above its head.
Even if this statue was created as a sort of good luck charm for safe sea voyages, isn’t it a bit weird for her to be holding a ship up like that?
“Sache, can we get a bit closer?”
This time, Sache easily agreed to my request, propelling us right up to the statue.
A large number of fish were gathered around the statue, but something seemed different about the way they moved compared to the fish we’d seen in the underwater forest.
After a moment of close observation, I understood the difference.
The fish were rubbing their bodies up against the statue, after which they nibbled on the surface of the statue, seemingly eating something.
I reached out to touch the surface of the statue, wondering if there was something on there, and found that a fine layer of what appeared to be moss covered it. The “moss” was white, so it was difficult to see against the stone, but I speculated that it was probably some kind of algae. When I experimentally scratched the surface with my nail, a small piece of the moss easily came off.
“Neema?!” Daux squeaked in surprise. “You can’t put something like that in your mouth…”
Oh, oops… I unconsciously put the finger with the moss on it in my mouth.
A gritty sensation that confirmed the moss had entered my mouth, but almost immediately, it melted on my tongue. The flavor was faintly sweet, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it tasted good. It kind of reminded me of sucking the nectar out of honeysuckle flowers—faintly sweet but not something you necessarily wanted to keep eating.
According to Koku’s analysis of the material I’d unintentionally consumed, it detected something called “harlin sunoko” and “the Goddess’s Healing.”
“Daux, do you know what ‘harlin sunoko’ is?” I tried asking Daux about the unfamiliar ingredient, but he’d never heard of it either.
I knew that “the Goddess’s Healing” was an ingredient that could heal injuries, but I was really curious now what “harlin sunoko” was.
“More importantly, who put a statue of the Goddess in a place like this?”
He has a point; that’s also highly unusual…
While the two of us were commenting on what a mystery it was, we suddenly heard what seemed to be a song coming from somewhere. It sounded like someone was humming a cheerful tune to themselves.
I looked around and spotted yet another mysterious lifeform.
This creature, which was swishing its long tail leisurely back and forth as it swam, was shaped kind of like a seal.
Is this some kind of fish?
Its tailfins stuck out from the sides of its tail, not the top and bottom. It also had fins on the sides of its chest that were just as long as the tailfins, but they seemed to drag listlessly in the water like the train of a dress. I didn’t get the impression the pectoral fins helped the creature swim at all.
Its plump, cylindrical torso was pretty much identical to a seal’s, except glowing scales covered it.
And the humming “song” I’d heard seemed its voice.
“It’s an astiarna!”
Daux seems to recognize it, but isn’t “astiarna” the Larshian word for “legendary songstress?”
There was a famous singer often referred to as “the continent’s premier astiarna,” but when I’d asked Karna what an “astiarna” was, she’d told me it was a term used to refer to a legendary songstress.
“Astiarna actually means ‘God’s singer.’ This animal was named that because their beautiful voice sounds like a song.”
Oh, I see. So, the animal’s name was adopted as a euphemism to refer to exceptionally talented singers as well!
“La-la-la!”
Once the astiarna noticed us, it swam in circles around us, continuing to sing.
Then Sache fluttered her wings in time with the astiarna’s song. A faint light appeared in a fan shape radiating out from the holy beast’s body, and the way it enchantingly flickered each time Sache’s wings fluttered was so beautiful it made my breath catch in my throat.
Euche joined in and copied Sache. Between the two of them, the entire vicinity was illuminated with a mesmerizing light show.
The astiarna didn’t seem frightened by the light; it just threw itself into its song with renewed vigor.
We spent an immeasurable amount of time like that, enjoying the astiarna’s beautiful singing voice. It was like a private concert just for us.