Hell’s Handbook 78: The Little Mermaid

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Su Jin moved quickly and had nearly reached the mollusk woman when her tentacles suddenly wrapped themselves around him.

Woong! A black beam shot out from one of the tentacles.
Su Jin couldn’t dodge the attack in time and cursed inwardly, but just then, the cloak he carried unfolded, and blocked the attack for Su Jin.

“Good job!” thought Su Jin to himself.
Then, he realized that the mollusk woman wasn’t moving anymore.

“That’s…that’s Triton’s Cloak! Why do you have this item?” exclaimed the mollusk woman in shock and stared at the cloak around Su Jin’s body with wide eyes.

Su Jin realized that the mollusk woman stopped attacking merely because she was too stunned by the appearance of this cloak.
He didn’t know why she seemed so shocked, but he had heard the word “Triton”.
He shouted at her, “Since you can see that I’ve got Triton’s cloak, then you’d better let go of me!”

Her expression changed several times before she finally calmed down again and scoffed.
“It’s just his cloak, not him.
I just have to kill you and that cloak is mine!”

“Wow, seriously? Who made up all these murderous characters?!” Su Jin grumbled in his mind as he used his strength to break a tentacle around him and send Rumor flying towards her eyes at the same time.

She reacted very quickly by using a tentacle to block Rumor.
Rumor cut through that tentacle, but her eyes weren’t hurt.

“Lowly human, give me Triton’s cloak and I can give you some other treasure in return!” she bellowed and looked determined to get her hands on that cloak.

Su Jin thought about it, then said, “Deal! If you can bring me one of the Little Mermaid’s scales, this cloak is yours!”

She was surprised for a moment but a smile soon returned to her face.
“I see.
You’re another one of those idiots who are hoping to live forever.
But her scales are useless.
You have to eat her flesh for that to work.”

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“I guess you could say I have an acquired taste? Never mind why I want it! In any case, if you want this cloak, you must bring me one of the Little Mermaid’s scales.
Make sure it’s a scale from Triton’s daughter!” Su Jin spelled his terms out clearly.

She pondered this deal for a while, then nodded in agreement.
“Fine.
I’ll get you a scale from the Little Mermaid.
Wait here for me.” She made a strange noise and all the sharks disappeared.

“No problem!” Su Jin nodded.

But after she had walked off, Su Jin followed behind her.
He wasn’t serious about striking a deal with her in the first place.
He just wanted to use her to locate the Little Mermaid.

As he followed the mollusk woman from a distance, he had to use his Spirit Power to conceal himself from time to time.
By the time they arrived at their destination, Su Jin realized that he had already used up more than half of his Spirit Power.
And this was only the first treasure.
Su Jin could only hope that the other teams were doing fine.

“Greetings, Sacred Goddess.” This was a residence guarded by several Sea People bodyguards, but it didn’t look like the palace.
The bodyguards bowed and greeted the mollusk woman.
She was actually the Sacred Goddess to the Sea People.

“If that’s the case, then she must be that sea witch that helped the Little Mermaid get her human legs, right?” Su Jin slapped his forehead as he realized who this woman probably was.

The mollusk woman strolled through the corridors easily, but it wasn’t as easy for Su Jin to keep up.
He was running out of Spirit Power and would have to kill his way in if he ran out before finding the Little Mermaid.

Just when he got ready for the worst, he finally caught sight of the Little Mermaid.
But when he actually saw her, he was taken aback.
It was little wonder that the prince in this version of the Little Mermaid wanted to eat her instead of getting romantically involved with her.

The mollusk woman stood in front of the Little Mermaid, or to be more accurate, the mollusk woman was standing in front of a half rotten clump of flesh.
She smiled and said, “My dearest princess! It’s been quite a while but you’re still as beautiful as ever!”

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The clump of flesh started moving but Su Jin couldn’t understand what it was trying to say at all.

But the mollusk woman burst out laughing loudly.
“Haha! Why are you so angry? I saved you from turning into sea foam back then so that you could enjoy pain and suffering for the rest of your life! It’s too bad that you can’t die, that’s all!” Her expression became wicked and vicious, as if she was filled with hatred for the Little Mermaid.

Su Jin nearly gasped in horror.
If this was the result of saving the Little Mermaid from turning into seafoam, that means…the Little Mermaid had already gone through the entirety of the story he knew.

He continued to put the pieces together and combined with the cloak he was wearing, he had pretty much the full story already.
The Little Mermaid had fallen in love with the human Prince Charming and was willing to sacrifice anything for him.
This mollusk woman was the sea witch who agreed to help the Little Mermaid grow human legs in exchange for Triton’s cloak.

But in the end, the Little Mermaid chose to let herself become seafoam while the cloak remained in the prince’s hands.
The mollusk woman furiously pulled the Little Mermaid halfway through her transformation into seafoam, which was why the poor mermaid was now a clump of rotten flesh.
But because mermaids were able to live forever, she was now destined to remain in this state forever as well.

So now, a descendant of that prince had returned to this part of the sea, perhaps after finding out from his elders about the Little Mermaid and wanted to attain immortality.
But because Su Jin had appeared, Triton’s cloak had also been inadvertently brought back to this place.

“When you left Triton’s cloak with the humans, you thought I’d never be able to get it, didn’t you? Guess what? It’s come back! A HUMAN has brought it back to me!” The mollusk woman laughed maniacally and seemed extremely excited.

The clump of flesh stopped moving as vigorously as before and even Su Jin could sense the despair emanating from the clump of fresh.

The mollusk woman gently caressed the clump of flesh and said, “But in order to get that cloak, I still need your help.
I’m taking this scale with me!” There was only one scale left on the Little Mermaid, so the mollusk woman reached for it.

Su Jin didn’t intend to exchange his cloak for the scale, so he threw Rumor out and it cut through the mollusk woman’s hand.

“Ah!” she cried out in pain.
She was a witch, but her physical body couldn’t hold up against weapons like that, so she started shrieking in pain after Rumor cut her hand off.

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Su Jin pounced onto her and used his Boning Knife to cut off all the tentacles that tried to attack him.

“We had a deal! You promised me! You can’t get that scale without me!!” she started shrieking in horror.
Su Jin couldn’t believe this woman was still thinking about the cloak despite being in grave danger.

But he couldn’t be bothered to talk to her at all.
He turned the knife the other way and sliced her head right off.
Everything had happened in a matter of seconds and she hadn’t even had enough time to shoot any black beams at him.

As the mollusk woman’s lifeless body crashed to the ground, Su Jin ran towards the clump of flesh.
The mollusk woman screamed so loudly just now, so he was sure that the bodyguards outside must have heard her.
He had no time to waste.

When he got closer, he realized that actually this clump of flesh had all the correct parts, but they were in haphazard positions and were also of the wrong proportion.

“Please…kill…me…” an extremely soft voice came out from the clump of flesh, pleading with Su Jin to kill her.

“You want…my scale…but…only Sea People…can remove it.
I’ll…give the scale…to you…but please…please kill me!” she continued to plead in short spurts.

Su Jin frowned as he remembered what the mollusk woman said just now.
So, he needed a member of the Sea People to remove the Little Mermaid’s scale.
No wonder the mollusk woman said that he needed her to obtain the scale.

“I promise to do that! But first, you must give me your scale!” Su Jin was running out of time and had to agree to anything she wanted.

The Little Mermaid was very trusting, so once Su Jin agreed to her request, the one and only scale on her body fell off.

“You must…turn me into…powder…or else…I cannot die,” the Little Mermaid said to Su Jin.

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He sighed heavily.
This was going to be more troublesome than he had hoped.
The only thing he had that could turn her into powder was the Demon Lord’s Longbow, but using that needed him to use the Demon Lord’s Spirit Power.

But Su Jin still decided to agree to it because he knew that these Challenges might actually be real happenings in another universe.
He sympathized with the Little Mermaid and was willing to end her suffering.

He picked up the scale, then retrieved the Demon Lord’s Longbow from his Handbook and activated the Roar of the Demon Lord.
A stream of sparkles roared towards the clump of flesh and it was instantly shattered into a million pieces, causing colorful bubbles to appear in the water.

In the midst of the bubbles, Su Jin trembled as he felt the Demon Lord Spirit Power eat away at him.
But just then, he suddenly felt a warmth rise from within his body.
He heard the sound of the bodyguards rushing in but at the same time, a white light enveloped him and he realized he was back where they had started.
The bright portal door to the Little Mermaid’s story slowly closed itself.

“Mr Su! You got the Little Mermaid’s scale?” That voice belonged to Gu Ming.
It turned out that Gu Ming and Ning Meng had been teleported back here after Su Jin got hold of the scale.

Su Jin nodded and touched the cloak on himself.
The cloak had left the story with him, which meant that the prince couldn’t take it back anymore and it was now Su Jin’s.

But what caught Su Jin’s eye was the number in the corner of his eye.
What used to be his 100 point Spirit Power limit now read 110 points.
His upper limit had increased by 10 points.

Su Jin started analyzing what could have happened and realized something.
After activating the Roar of the Demon Lord, the Demon Lord Spirit Power ate away at him as usual, but the last bit of Psychokinetic Spirit Power he had left also got to work.

Su Jin’s Psychokinetic Spirit Power resisted the attack of the Demon Lord Spirit Power on Su Jin and increased in this process.
This came as a pleasant surprise to Su Jin.
So, his Psychokinetic Spirit Power would only increase under the pressure from other Spirit Powers, or perhaps it only had the chance to develop further when he was in grave danger.

If that was the case, then the remaining Demon Lord Spirit Power inside the Demon Lord’s Eye was like gym equipment to his own Spirit Power.

Meanwhile, somewhere in the crevasses of space and time, Auntie Li’s eyes widened in disbelief.
She grabbed hold of the wooden fence and roared furiously, “NO! That’s impossible! There’s nothing…nothing has ever been able to resist my power! What…how did that happen?!”