"I want to buy currency relics, any danger level is fine."
The feeling of watching the sea from a high cliff is completely different from that of watching the sea from the coast. Shade can even see the black smoke coming out of a ship as big as Mia in the distance. He thought that if he had time to take Mia to see the scenery here, the cat would definitely be scared by the sea.
"I don't have anything like this at the moment. But I can keep an eye out for you."
Mr. Edmund said that although Shad had good luck in the tavern, it would not be so easy to get another one.
"Oh well."
He shrugged, not disappointed.
"Mr. Watson may come to you himself in the future. I introduced him to you. I came here today for something else."
Miss Princess said, looking at the sea in the distance. When Shad arrived here in the morning, the weather was still gloomy, but it was completely clear in the afternoon.
"Mr. Edmund, have you heard about the Sage-level relic, the Mermaid's Dream? I want to buy a relic from you that can temporarily suppress this curse. I know you must have such a thing. If Coldwater Harbor City can find a way to suppress the curse, besides the Orthodox Church, it must be you."
"You've touched the mermaid statue?"
Before Mr. Edmund could speak, Shad asked in surprise.
"Yeah, is that weird? Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you."
The blonde girl didn't look at Shade, but continued to look at the sea in the distance and said, her last words lost in the rumbling sound of the water:
"That happened a few weeks ago, before the curse broke out. I learned about the three mermaid statues from a friend, so I got one, and unfortunately, I was cursed."
There wasn't much frustration in her tone:
"I originally thought that the curse would take at least half a year to break out, and the church would have found a way to break the curse by then. I didn't expect that it would only take a week and a half, and I had already dreamed of the palace in the deep sea."
"This is already the late stage of the curse, how come it's so fast?"
The old man who guards the lighthouse was also surprised:
"You have seen in your dreams..."
"No, I just fell into the deep sea in my dream, and my consciousness was drawn into the abyss. I saw the terrifying and twisted giant stone buildings outside the underwater temple, but not the huge mermaid corpse in the palace."
Even though he had heard the warehouse dispatcher describe the dream scene a few weeks ago, Xia De was still a little uneasy when he heard the sound of the waves and heard the dream caused by the curse again.
He looked at Miss Princess with great concern. He did not expect that the sorceress he met today would encounter such a terrible thing.
Mr. Edmund frowned and thought for a moment, then said:
"I'm lucky. There is indeed a relic here that can fight the curse. Although it is clerical grade, it is very expensive."
"How much?"
Miss Princess asked, and Shad listened, thinking that if the other party didn't have enough money, he might be able to borrow some.
"One thousand three hundred pounds, no bargaining. You know that the value of a relic that can fight a curse is not comparable to that of an ordinary clerical-level relic."
Xia De subconsciously took a breath, but Miss Princess snorted, as if she was laughing:
"I thought it would be five figures. It seems that I overestimated the amount of money I prepared in advance. No problem, but how about a money order? There's no way I can go out with that much cash."
This lady was much richer than Shad had imagined.
"Of course a bill of exchange will do."
Mr. Edmund, who was guarding the clock tower, glanced at Shade and saw that the sorceress had no intention of asking him to leave, so he began to talk about the details of the relic:
"A clerical-level relic, Saint Laurent's ring. The origin of the relic is very clear. It was the ring of the great witch Roland, who was favored by the old god of light, the Demon Wolf of the Fifth Epoch. In the Fifth Epoch, this was a very famous and powerful alchemical product. After it was transformed into a relic, it could give the wearer extremely strong resistance to curses. It is useful for any curse. Even if it cannot make the wearer completely immune to curses, it can slow down the effects of curses."
"Is it stolen property?"
Miss Princess inquired.
"No, the ring came into my hands a year ago. Its original owner went on an expedition to the New World and met with an unfortunate accident. His companions brought the ring back to Coldwater Port, but they sold it because they were in urgent need of gold."
Sir Edmund said, and the blonde girl thought about it and nodded:
"Okay, but I want to inspect it. Also, do you have any other information about the Mermaid Dream? The ring can't completely eliminate the curse, and I can't expect the church to find a solution as soon as possible."
"Did you know about the deep-sea fishmen summoned by the ritual who shot and killed people?"
The old man asked. Shade, who was standing beside him, looked up at the seagulls above his head, not wanting to get involved in this conversation.
It seemed that everyone in this city knew about the "fish man shooting and killing people" incident.
"Of course I know."
Miss Princess smiled:
"That happened last week. I also know that the church is investigating this idea, but it seems to have reached a dead end, just like the deep-sea mermaid summoned by the ritual has turned into a human and disappeared."
Shade put his hands in his pockets and kicked the rocks under his feet off the sea cliff, looking very bored.
"Do you know about 'Sea Return'? It is said to be a ceremony related to those statues."
The old man continued, and then spoke before Miss Princess:
"Even if you have heard the news, you must have only heard it and do not understand its full meaning. Only folklorists like me who have lived in Coldwater Port for many years and know the local ancient customs can interpret the meaning of the nursery rhyme."
The old man who claimed to be a folklorist smiled and twisted his fingers at Miss Princess, who said nonchalantly:
"We'll settle the bill together later. If you have any news, tell me all of it at once, okay?"
"Well, most nursery rhymes have their own origins, and the origin of 'Return from the Sea' is actually a sacrificial ceremony to a certain evil god in the local fishing village of Lengshui Port at the beginning of this era. Let me analyze it for you. The main body of the nursery rhyme is four sentences."
He held up four fingers:
“The mermaid’s song floats over the harbor—there are rumors of mermaids appearing locally, representing evil totems;
Even the bloody pirate ship lowered its sails—the followers of the evil god appeared in the guise of pirates to participate in the ceremony;
The red ocean is surging - after the above two steps are completed, a signal will appear, symbolized by the ocean turning red;
The beautiful girl went to the deep sea - to sacrifice a young girl."
After saying that, he smiled and shook his head:
"Folk customs are so interesting. As long as you know how to interpret them, you can see a lot of different things in just four sentences. There should be scholars in the Orthodox Church who can come to the same conclusion as me based on local customs and legends, but they certainly won't be faster than me."
The old man is very proud of his knowledge.
"This ritual... Why does it sound like it's summoning something..."
Xia De, who had heard the entire conversation, suddenly said, and Miss Princess nodded hesitantly:
"Mr. Watson is right. If the mermaid statue was deliberately placed in the dock warehouse and left to scatter, then is there a cult behind this incident that wants to summon something?"
"I don't know about that. Now mermaids have indeed appeared in Coldwater Harbor. If unusual pirates appear in a few weeks, we will know the answer."
Mr. Edmund said, and Shade, who had just experienced the evil god's coming more than a week ago, asked nervously:
"Excuse me, which god is this folk song related to?"
"The small fishing village of Coldwater Harbor has disappeared for more than a thousand years. The only information points to three gods. The god of the deep sea drowned who controls the dead in the sea, the Lord of the Scarlet Spiral who is said to be the protector of the terrible fishman race, and the god of storms, the furious storm, who was defeated by the righteous god Peace Father according to some esoteric scriptures."
The old man replied, and after a pause he added:
"These three are evil gods."
Xia De was quite familiar with the first one, but he had only read about the other two in books. The fishmen mentioned in the book were intelligent humanoids. But unlike the beautiful girls who were good at singing in the stories, the mermaids in this world were brutal creatures who loved to eat human flesh and were good at all kinds of evil spells and rituals.
Facing the sea at this time, hearing the names of the three evil gods in succession, even Xia De felt a little cold for some reason.
The current evidence is not enough to prove what will happen next. But more and more clues show that the appearance of those mermaid statues in Coldwater Harbor is definitely not accidental.