Never Saved You

However, Ophelia didn’t tell Ariel what the cause of her death was.

Even if Ophelia said she would, Ariel wouldn’t have the courage to hear it.

From that woman who looked like her but was different, if she had heard how and why she died, Ariel thought that it was something she wouldn’t be able to take back.

‘And Grandfather¹ said that the less I knew about time, the better.’

If it was something she didn’t have to know, then it’s better to leave the unknown as much as possible.

The more one learned, the more their fate would be twisted.

That’s what the mer-king, who cared very much for his youngest daughter, said.

Did he know that his beloved granddaughter would be in such a situation?

‘But it was nice when I saw that human.’

While she was swimming beneath the evening sky, she came across a sailing ship.

And for some reason, there was a human man standing alone at the edge of the noisy deck.

He was the most handsome man Ariel had ever seen in her life.

He was a human being with dark hair that blended seamlessly with the night sky, with the moonlight touching upon his cheeks that expressed a certain melancholy.

When she hid herself in the shadows beneath the water, continuing to peek at him, it somehow felt as though her heart was pounding.

If it wasn’t for the sudden upheaval of the ship at that time, if it weren’t for the man falling overboard and into the sea… Would things be different?

When she came to her senses, the man was already in her arms, and the ship was already being swept away by the waves as its sailors and passengers gradually came closer and closer to their deaths.

How could she explain her joy back then, when there was only that man and her left in the open sea… where only the mysterious waters and the shadowed sky that it mirrored were left around them both…

A shooting star. Yes, a shooting star.

It was like a shooting star had plunged into her bosom.

As she held the man close to her heart, it pounded so heavily that she thought it was about to burst.

Did the ancient mermaids who loved humans and lured them into the ocean feel this way?

Mermaids had only one rule.

Do not interfere with anything that happens on the surface.

Ariel knew how common shipwrecks were in this wide sea. And how easy it was to succumb to death’s embrace.

It would have only been right if she left him there and returned home, but…

“…Older Sisters, I’m a little tired, so I’ll retire early.”

Ariel swam to her room, leaving her sisters behind.

Before she parted ways with Ophelia, there was a question that Ariel kept thinking about.

Ophelia asked simply.

If she was thrown into the same situation in the past once more, Ophelia wanted to know what Ariel thought.

—If you fall in love with someone and watch your beloved marry someone else, what would you do?

For some reason, Ariel couldn’t answer the trivial question.

* * *

Meanwhile, around the same time—

“So, you picked him up from the shore?”

“He looked like he needed some help.”

Ophelia nodded slightly as Alei asked her and replied like that.

She had just returned to the castle and was having this conversation with Alei.

Just as she had left her room with Sante, she came back after soaring the skies one more. But when she returned, there was another person inside her room.

Of course, it was Alei.

It was good that he was there because she needed someone to keep Ian alive to some extent.

It was even better that he was there because there was something she wanted to ask.

‘I haven’t encountered any problems yet, except that there’s still no breakthrough on the matter of Ariel and her scale.’

Ophelia leaned back on the sofa, feeling the exhaustion from this situation catching up to her.

Not too long ago, at the shore.

Ophelia explained her past to Ariel.

Why Ariel had to die and why Ophelia came back to the past.

Of course, she didn’t go into the details. She cursorily told her about how her sisters gave Ariel a dagger, how Ariel was sent to the surface.

And Ophelia talked about what she went through in Ronen.

“In shorter terms, all this tragedy happened because the man you fell in love with misunderstood and thought that I was the one who saved him, not you.”

“I can’t believe this…”

Ariel initially just looked back at Ophelia with disbelief. But as Ophelia continued her story, Ariel’s disbelief turned into a yearning for skepticism.

Perhaps this was natural for her. Ophelia was a person she met for the first time, she knew who Ariel was in love with—and so, it was only natural for her to turn to incredulity.

‘Since I even said that it all ended in tragedy.’

Ophelia felt like she had done something terrible to an innocent mermaid, but this was something that had to be done.

Without telling the mermaid about all this, Ophelia wouldn’t be able to explain her reason for seeking her out.

She met Ariel because she wanted to escape from the magical binding of the scale.

“I’m trying to find out about the spell that was left behind when your scale was passed to me. Any other magic isn’t even possible for me in this state.”

Above all, magical spells were often impermanent.

The mermaid scale was sure to have an expiration to it as well, and once that period would come to a close, she might fall right back into reality.

Still, there were times when the magic that was cast would stay permanently, but Ophelia wasn’t sure if that was the case for her situation.

Ophelia did not want to tremble every second, not knowing when this life would disappear.

“I’m not expecting a lot, I just want to understand the true nature of this spell more. When it will end, or if it will continue with no end. If you help me, Ariel, I’ll help you as well. So you won’t die young.”

And it was really just a simple task.

All Ophelia had to do was to keep Ariel away from the land.

‘Or help Ian fall in love with Ariel.’

Ophelia knew that either option would be easy. She could almost guarantee it.

As she mentioned to the mermaid earlier, Ian would love his savior.

Ophelia stared deep into Ariel’s mesmerizing blue eyes as she emphasized this.

“If you free me from your spell, I’ll save your life as well.”

Or it could be something else, and not her life. Ophelia could help Ariel with anything else she wanted.

However, a problem appeared where Ophelia least expected it.

Ariel, who was looking at Ophelia with a troubled expression, shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I understand everything you went through, but I don’t think I can help you with this.”

“Why?”

Ophelia had been holding onto this meeting, hoping that she’d find a solution when she met Ariel, yet all she could do was ask back in despair.

The only reason why she wanted to meet Ariel was to find a way to solve the scale’s magic.

What did she mean by not being able to help?

“Wouldn’t you know how to break the spell? Even just a clue, please.”

“I’m not sure what clue you’re expecting, but there’s also a type of spell that won’t be solved until it’s completed.”

“A type of spell?”

Ophelia asked, her tone slightly shadowed by distrust.

Because magic in general had been shunned, there wasn’t much content about it.

But it just so happened that the world’s most powerful archmage was her friend in her previous life.

Of course, it had been quite a while since then.

As far as Ophelia knew, if the laws of nature were to be considered alongside the knowledge of making formulas, magic could be conjured into reality through the calculation of the formulas through a medium called a ‘spell’.

The essence of conjuring magic was the same for any race, Alei had explained.

—Humans had to pour a lot of effort into making magic formulas, but races that naturally know how to wield magic such as mermaids and sirens have different eyes compared to humans.

Closer to animals than humans, they had sharper, brighter eyes.

That’s why, Alei continued, they could instinctively grasp how to do spells without having to research while they grew up.

But the very foundation of magic did not change. Magic was, in essence, computational, and there should definitely be a way to solve this.

So what did Ariel mean by a type of magic that couldn’t be solved?

“If she says it’s like that, I’m inclined to think that’s the case as well.”

Ophelia would have continued to doubt Ariel had Sante not interjected.

“Sante, that kind of magic is…”

“It’s quite literally a spell that even a spellcaster wouldn’t be able to solve. Humans call it ‘conditional magic’.”

Sante’s explanation stopped there.

He only said that she should ask Dian since he would know about it best.

It was like Sante was avoiding the task of explaining.

Anxiety washed over Ophelia.

t/n:

¹ in the original Andersen fairytale, Ariel had a widowed father (the mer-king) and a dowager grandmother—no grandfather was mentioned in the Andersen tale and the Disney version, but here in NSY, we have a grandfather who’s the mer-king, and a father who’s mentioned in chapter 24. let’s see in the future chapters if there’s also a grandmother~