Chapter 74: Aquatic Lord (2/2)

Which was why it was so odd that the frogmen had elected to remain, in the face of these attacks by the Secret Eye Society.

As far as she was aware, the frogmen were not the sort of people to get too attached to any particular piece of land. More at home in the water than any human could ever hope to be, they could easily retreat to the bottom of the shallows to evade the Society of the Secret Eye, and then find themselves a new home along some more prosperous stretch of the coastline.

If they could tell her more about their side of the story, she’d be better able to make a plan, such as helping to transfer the frogmen to another place, so that their abandoned village here could be used to set an ambush for the Secret Eye. Time permitting, they could even construct defense works and traps.

The frogman elder was silent for a while. Just as the princess was thinking that he wouldn’t answer the question after all, he quietly said, “Young lady, are you familiar with the Aquatic Lord?”

“The Aquatic Lord?”

“That’s right. That’s the god we frogmen worship. Little human girl, have you ever heard about him?”

Leah was at a loss. She tried to summon all her knowledge of theology, but after much rumination, she still couldn’t recall ever hearing about such a deity.

As the successor to the rulership of Tierra, Leah had studied a great many things, including matters of gods and religions. One could say that in a world where the power of gods was manifest, this was an essential topic.

However, not even she had ever heard of a god like that.

She could pretend to recognize the title, and then ride along with whatever he had to say about the subject—but she chose not to do such a thing.

“I beg your pardon,” she apologized, “I don’t believe I know of such a figure.”

“That’s to be expected,” the elder murmured. “It’s been almost a thousand years since this god last demonstrated any of his powers. There are even some who believe that he was slain during the last Divine War!”

This information left Leah a little shocked.

However, she recovered quickly. Was this relevant in any way to her question of why they were choosing to hold the beach?

“We’ve always been here,” the elder explained. “In spite of the wind and the rain and the stormy sea, we’ve lingered here for a simple reason: A long, long time ago, our ancestors were entrusted with a task by the Aquatic God: As long as we remain here, and keep the faith, the day will come when our great deity will return to us, to lead our people once more.

“This past millennium, we’ve suffered endless hardships without a god watching over us, and we’ve been ridiculed and mistreated by other religions and races… but we’ve never once lost faith that our god will return to us, and make everything alright again. No matter how dangerous or hopeless the situation may seem, we won’t budge. This is our holy ground!”

The princess gasped, a sense of admiration welling up inside her, and she bowed slightly to him.

She understood their plight better than anyone. During the fall of Tierra, the God of Games had done nothing. For a long time afterwards, the survivors had been pushed around by the other religions, until they finally retreated into the underground sewers. Even so, the princess continued to hold on to her faith in the God of Games. Now that she’d finally summoned him with her prayers, it felt as though her life, which had been at a standstill this whole time, was finally in motion once again.

However, compared to her scant few years of waiting, the faith of these frogmen had endured through the generations for close to a millennium!

Small wonder that even an overwhelming foe such as the Society of the Secret Eye had failed to scare off the frogmen. Compared to a faith that had persisted for a thousand years, something as mundane as death held no terror for them.