TMTML 01

Chapter 1

“They say that girl raised a mermaid. A very beautiful mermaid.”

After developing Alzheimer’s disease, my great-grandfather often told stories about his niece.

I suppose it was because I looked so much like her.

I heard that she had died at a young age.

They said she had been physically weak, but had a very gentle and kind heart.

A story about a frail girl and the beautiful mermaid she loved.

At first glance, it sounded like something out of a fairy tale.

“That girl locked the mermaid away in a lake.”

“……Excuse me?”

That is, if you didn’t know the details.…………….

My great-grandfather spoke as though he were reminiscing about the past, but after hearing that, no matter how beautifully I tried to dress it up, the story sounded like a thriller.

“She cherished the mermaid so much that she wouldn’t even let the servants see him.”

That sounds more like obsession to me….…………….

“Originally, she kept him in a tank in her room, but she was so gentle and kind-hearted that she even moved him to the lake for his sake.”

It was obsession! Complete and utter obsession!

But there was another shocking detail besides that. I hesitated before asking.

“Grandfather. But mermaids live in the sea, right? I mean, in saltwater, while lakes have freshwater.”

I had lived by the sea all my life, so I knew quite a bit about fish. Fish that lived in saltwater could go into shock when exposed to freshwater. And there was no way my great-grandfather didn’t know what I did.

“……Anyway, she was so gentle and kind-hearted that she moved the mermaid to the lake.”

My great-grandfather, who had broken out in a cold sweat, eventually pretended not to hear me.

The more I listened, the less that person sounded like someone with a gentle and kind heart.

At first, I objected a few times, but eventually I just went along with it.

“What a wonderful person she must have been!”

Because my great-grandfather cared deeply for his niece.

I’m terribly sorry to my great-grandfather, but at the time, I simply dismissed everything he said as nonsense caused by Alzheimer’s.

Because, no matter how you looked at it, there was no such thing as a mermaid in this world.

And now, about ten years had passed since my great-grandfather’s death.

Only now did I begin to wonder if what he had told me might actually have been true.

It was a mansion where all of my great-grandfather’s family and servants had been murdered.

When he was alive, it was a place he was so afraid of that he couldn’t even set foot inside.

After arriving there, I came face-to-face with a man.

………………Is he really human?

The very first thought that crossed my mind was that he might not be human.

He was far too beautiful.

The man’s white skin was as noble as white coral, while his dark navy curly hair looked elegant.

His high nose and deep-set eyes gave him a decadent air, yet his eyes were as clear as the sky.

For quite some time, we simply stared at each other.

I was staring because he was unbelievably handsome, but I had no idea why he was looking at me as though he were completely entranced.

The man slowly descended the stairs one step at a time before opening his mouth.

“Servain……………?”

The name that came from his lips immediately reminded me of the “mermaid” my great-grandfather had spoken about.

Keeping his eyes fixed on me, the man repeated the name in a trembling voice.

“Servain………………right?”

It felt like I had just been given the final confirmation.

A hypothesis suddenly occurred to me.

I desperately hoped it wasn’t true, but the signs that it was were already appearing.

“Servain………………? Why………………aren’t you answering?”

I sincerely wished I had heard him wrong.

Because that name belonged to my late great-grandfather’s niece.

And…… it was also the name I had been given because I looked so much like her.

“Why are you making that face?”

The man’s eyes reddened as he strode toward me.

I heard he was supposed to have a tail instead of legs.

He was a mermaid……………….

Yet those two legs of his looked perfectly human.

I wanted to cry on the inside, but instinctively forced a smile onto my face.

My feet began backing away on their own. My brain was screaming at me not to say another word and to run away immediately.

But my mouth, completely uncooperative, moved its tongue anyway.

“Hahaha, Your Grace? Please calm down. I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

I had never felt this much fear in my entire life.

No matter how I thought about it, there was only one possible future that could come from this situation.

Think about it.

There was a mermaid who had been forcibly imprisoned in a lake and had always desperately wanted to return to the sea.

But now he had legs, right?

Then he should have been able to leave the lake on his own and return to the place he had longed for so badly—his sweet home, the sea.

But what was this?

The mermaid had gained legs, yet instead of returning to the sea, he had deliberately remained here?

Calling out the name of the person who had imprisoned him over and over?

What other reason could there be?

………………You really don’t know?

Of course it was revenge.

About a hundred years before the present day.

“Servain, I brought you a present.”

My father brought me a gift once a month.

Every single one was a living creature.

“Perhaps raising a pet will help alleviate your depression. Then, perhaps, Miss, you will try harder to live.”

A single remark from a doctor had eventually brought about this situation.

I swallowed my disgust and looked at them with deliberately emotionless eyes.

As soon as I gave them a glance, the servant began explaining.

“This peacock is a rare species brought from the south. Its feathers are even more beautiful and colorful than those of an ordinary peacock.”

“I’m not interested.”

“This cat is a breed that nobles in the west have recently taken an interest in. It has an adorable appearance and is very affectionate. Usually, its claws are removed to tame—”

“I’m not interested.”

“This is—”

“All of them.”

I looked at my father instead of the servant.

I spoke each word slowly, as though grinding it between my teeth, as if I were cursing.

“All of them. I’m not interested, so take them away.”

“Yes.”

The servants carried the gifts out of the room.

I knew what would happen to them.

They would be slaughtered soon.

But they were nothing more than animals.

They would simply die a little earlier than I would, so I couldn’t bring myself to feel particularly sorry for them.

A faint irritation appeared on my father’s cold expression.

He blamed the servants as he spoke.

“I told you to bring something suitable, yet these servants still don’t seem to understand.”

No. It isn’t their fault for choosing the gifts.

I wanted to say that, but swallowed the words and merely lifted the corners of my lips into a smile.

When I said nothing, my father eventually sighed and spoke.

“Servain. Get plenty of rest. I’ll bring you better things next time.”

“……Yes. Thank you.”

My father gave me a perfunctory smile on his corpse-like, lifeless face before gently stroking my head.

It was a loathsome touch.

If I had been even a little healthier, I would have slapped that hand away.

Click.

The man who had been pretending to be a kind father left the room.

The moment he was gone, the anger I had been suppressing erupted.

I clenched my fists.

My nails dug into my flesh, but I didn’t have enough strength to make them draw blood.

So, in a fit of frustration, I threw a book toward the window.

Crash!

“Eek!”

A maid’s scream came from outside.

Since everyone was accustomed to things being thrown out of my room, the commotion soon died down.

The reason for my actions was simple.

I threw things because I wanted to hear someone scream.

I wanted to scream myself.

If I had been able to scream, I wouldn’t have done things like this.

Even if it were only the faintest sound.

My father loved my mother.

To emphasize, he loved only my mother.

“Servain. My daughter………………. I’m sorry, Mother is sorry.”

Because my father was jealous even when his daughter met her, my mother could rarely come to see me.

My mother was always confined.

The last time she was able to visit me, even if only rarely, was when I was six years old.

“I’m sorry I can’t come anymore. I’m sorry I couldn’t take better care of my daughter.”

My mother died of an illness when I was eleven.

Even then, my father paid no attention to me.

“Please take good care of our daughter, Servain.”

That was my mother’s final wish, which I later heard from a servant.

Only then did the Duke, who had treated his wife so dearly, begin to pay attention to me, following his wife’s dying wish.

Four years had already passed since then.

“My daughter. You are my only heir. So I shall give you the symbol of our family.”

It was a loathsome kind of affection.

In fact, I even questioned whether it could be called affection at all.

“I’m worried you’ll leave as quickly as she did.”

“……She asked me to take good care of you.”

To him, I was less a daughter than a task his wife had left behind.

A blood-related task who, like his wife, had a weak and sickly body.

Although I was too frail to even leave the house, simply judging by the color of his face, he looked even more lifeless than I did.

My father was a man who, if I—the task left behind—didn’t exist, would probably have killed himself immediately to follow my mother.

I had no reason to remain attached to this place.

There was no affection here that could bind me to it.

I wished for my life to end as soon as possible, so that I could disappear without another day passing.

“It’s a mermaid.”

The intervals between my father’s gifts grew shorter.

With a cool complexion and a relaxed smile, my father spoke with an expression that clearly showed he was certain I wouldn’t refuse this gift.

“This is the first time I’ve ever captured a mermaid, a creature known only in legends.

I brought it for you before anyone else could find out.”

I stared at a glass tank larger than anything I had ever seen in my life.

Several strong men were needed just to move it.

It was the largest glass tank I had ever seen, but in truth, it wasn’t spacious enough for a boy around my age who was inside it.

I couldn’t close my mouth.

I didn’t want to look surprised, but I couldn’t help it.

My father smiled with satisfaction.

“Well? Do you like this one?”

“……Where in the world did you bring him from?”

“The sea. There’s a sea near our mansion.”

I hadn’t known.

When I was very young, I had once gone into the forest behind the mansion, but I had never made it as far as a place where I could see the sea.

“If you go through the forest behind the mansion, you’ll reach a cliff. From there, you can look down upon the sea. That thing came from there.”

Thing.

Was it really appropriate to call him that?

Half of him was human, after all.

I turned my gaze back to the tank.

A young boy around my age—the mermaid—met my eyes.

The mermaid’s hair was dark navy.

The curly-haired mermaid trembled as he huddled in the corner, repeatedly looking between my father, the servant, and me.

His vivid blue eyes and pale, glowing white skin stood out.

The shimmering silver-blue scales of the tail in place of his legs twitched beautifully.

“I’m not—”

I was going to say, I’m not interested.

But I couldn’t.

Because I knew what happened to the living creatures that were taken away from my room.

Even if it was only a beast, I couldn’t bring myself to let something with a human form die.

The mermaid’s eyes, which somehow looked as though they could not even remain moist despite being underwater, made me swallow my words.

“……Thank you, Father.”

“I’m glad you like the gift.”

That was my first meeting with my mermaid.