Never Saved You

Chapter 82

Translator: Yonnee

—

Clearly, she would have more opportunities to see him around the castle, too, but that wasn’t what she wanted.

She wanted to be with him alone.

Just as they did on the beach where they held each other’s hands, just as they did whenever they spent the night in each other’s company.

‘Then, will I know the cause of this emotion?’

In a moment of frustration, Ophelia looked down at her hands.

However, as the one standing opposite her, Sante interpreted this differently.

As he watched Ophelia, the corners of his lips curled up as—clack!—he snapped his fingers.

“You look very troubled today, Princess.”

“…Ah, sorry.”

“As long as you know. I exerted myself so much, but I was almost disappointed when you didn’t react at all. If it’s this significant, I do think I deserve at least a compliment.”

Or was this not to the princess’ standards?

As Sante asked with a relaxed smile on his lips, Ophelia shook her head.

“It’s not like that. I really am very thankful.”

“Then let me ask, why do you look so disheartened? What happened?”

“No, it’s just that thinking about meeting Ariel is making my thoughts a mess.”

Ophelia lied with practiced ease.

Truthfully, she was entirely grateful towards Sante. Meeting Ariel had been her biggest problem thus far, so how could she not be grateful when he solved such a huge thing?

Naturally though, the hurdle to overcome this time would be to convince her not to come to land.

It’s such a long journey just getting to this point where Ophelia would be able to talk to Ariel, so she appreciated this very much.

‘But it really did take some time to get here.’

Meeting Ariel was not so simple to do, and the more she thought about it, the more it weighed down on Ophelia’s heart.

She was not in a position to arrange a meeting between Ariel and Ian.

‘I don’t know if it’ll turn out alright.’

If, after Ariel would meet Ian, the mermaid’s desire to stay on land became stronger, then it was going to be disconcerting.

However, Ophelia didn’t want to stop Ariel from doing what she wanted, unlike what her older sisters were doing.

Ophelia had already told Ariel that she could die if she came to land.

‘And yet, she still wants to come in the end.’

She must think that it would all be worth it.

Was that desire fueled by only love for Ian?

When Ophelia first met Ariel, she inevitably sensed that they were alike.

It wasn’t just their outward appearances.

Ariel wanted the same things that Ophelia did.

They both longed for a place that was beyond their reach.

In Ophleia’s case, it was the tower—it was freedom. But in Ariel’s, it was land.

“So then, Sante, when will the meeting take place?”

“On the next full moon, during sunset.”

Turning to the calendar, Ophelia rubbed her eyes as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

“If it’s a full moon, then isn’t it tonight?”

“Yeah, it’s better to get it over with as fast as possible, right?”

Sante didn’t even think to deny it. Seeing this, Ophelia laughed in vain.

‘I’m supposed to meet Alei today.’

Yet the meeting with Ariel was also today.

She didn’t mean to blame Sante. It’s only because she thought it’s been really difficult to meet Alei lately.

‘It can’t be helped.’

If she had to prioritize one of them, then it was Ariel. Now, everything was imminent.

“I was supposed to meet someone else after sunset today, but I’ll have to put it off.”

“Another meeting? I guess I scheduled it too early.”

“It’s alright. We can see each other later. Rather than that, meeting Ariel is more important.”

“I did say that I like taking care of things quickly, but is there a reason why you’re in a hurry now?”

Sante asked, not knowing the reason, but at this Ophelia took out a map that she had pushed to one side of her desk.

Various arrows and marks were drawn over it chaotically, so unless you’re a skilled navigator, you wouldn’t be able to recognize even half of them.

There was a reason why she was so hell bent on meeting Ariel.

Of course, she wanted to let Ian and Ariel meet as well, but there was a much simpler intention behind this.

“Ariel is the final key to locating the tower.”

“You might be wrong there. Ariel can’t reveal the tower’s location either.”

“I’m aware of that. It’s not the location of the tower that I’m trying to ask.”

Sante raised one eyebrow.

The slight gesture was a silent question about what, then, was she going to ask after she had been looking for Ariel all this time.

With Sante still expressing his confusion, Ophelia faced him and opened her lips to speak.

“There is one particular accident that only Ariel knows about.”

And that accident would be the key to taking Ophelia to the tower.

* * *

If she had wanted to ask about the ocean, actually, there were many other individuals who she could have called to ask.

For one, Ariel’s older sisters would be more knowledgeable about the water’s routes compared to Ariel. Sante, too, would know more than anyone else about what happened atop it, even if he didn’t know what was going on within the waters itself.

Nevertheless, Ophelia had to meet Ariel.

Because she was the only answer to one particular problem.

Ophelia looked down at the map that she had scrawled over with several arrows and other marks.

There were two signs that littered the map.

The first was a red X.

‘It’s on the route where accidents often happen even when the ocean’s currents aren’t colliding there.’

Evidently, it’s also true that accidents were likely to occur whether or not there were any colliding currents. However, thinking that it was ‘only natural’ was a shadow that then became blind spots to people.

And truthfully, it was difficult to know where exactly ships had toppled over.

In other words, there were not many ways to record where sirens appeared or where storms raged over the wide-open ocean.

‘The tower must be hidden in one of those blind spots.’

Ophelia was certain of it.

But because of this, Ophelia also had to consider one more possibility.

That’s where a blue circle was.

Strangely, only a few accidents happened on this route.

Danger was an inevitable possibility in the ocean, and this included any storm that could fall on a certain route.

So, every route had some history of accidents of around five or more every year.

‘There’s no other single route that has that little.’

And Ophelia had a hunch that this blind spot was one that she couldn’t overlook.

She didn’t think this way in the beginning.

Unlike the red X, of which the ink had long since dried, the blue mark had yet to settle on the map.

It hadn’t been long since she placed that mark there.

‘It’s only natural that I thought there would be a lot of accidents around the location of the tower.’

But her conversation with Cornelli a few days ago opened her eyes to that blind spot.

When she found out that if a ship would come near the tower’s barrier,

—It passes by as if nothing just happened.

—I thought it would hit something solid at least.

—If the barrier could be hit like that, then we would be revealed. Hiding an entire place is trickier than you think.

That’s why, Cornelli explained, that a place like that could only be hidden if it couldn’t be found through one’s senses.

So in other words, for most people, the magic tower was like a place that did not exist at all.

‘But the tower exists for sure, and it must be occupying a certain area.’

She heard that, inside the barrier, not only was the tower there but also the nest of the sirens. For that reason, it’s clear that the size of an island like that was by no means small enough to be negligible.

If one were to pass by that area at once, how would the experience be conceived on the surface level?

‘Then I’m sure that no accidents would pass by there.’

So, she thought that perhaps this was the blind spot that the tower’s barrier had created.

Confirming either the red X or the blue circle would be the key to inferring the tower’s location.

If Ophelia were to say this to anyone, they might wonder.

So then, what did Ariel have to do with either of these marks?

Simple.

It was for Ariel to recall the day she saved Ian—and which route it was.

Where was Ariel headed that day?

‘Ariel lived under the sea her whole life.’

According to Sante, Ariel couldn’t even learn any magic properly because she was so very coddled by her older sisters.

Needless to say, other beings like mermaids and sirens had the innate ability of reading nature’s magical runes and the like. However, Ariel was a bit of an unusual case.