“I’m serious. What in the deep are you Seafolk pulling?” Eli bit a charred tentacle, sighing at the big crab like surf over worn rocks.

“Eh… this’s a wide-area ward,” the giant crab said, gnawing a tentacle like a gull on flotsam. “We corral giant octopoid strains to seal the border.”

“But really, who are you?” The crab glanced at the mound of octopus corpses like a reef of meat, and sighed like wind through kelp. “You killed a lot.”

Eli shrugged, shoulders like drifting driftwood. “So what. I killed heaps, and I still can’t get in. The numbers inside make my scalp crawl like ants.”

“Simple,” the crab said, voice dull as silt. “We pen them in the abyss. Seafolk are born and die like the tide, and the waste gets tossed to them.”

“These copy-bred octopi don’t think,” he added, tapping the meat like tapping a shell. “Whatever you feed, they eat, like shadow to shadow.”

“See? The texture isn’t purebred,” the crab muttered, pointing at his string of meat like a gloomy fisherman under gray clouds.

“Mm… if you put it that way, next time I get a chance, I’ve gotta try the real thing.” Eli smacked his lips, swallowing like a pebble dropped in a well.

“…Pretend I never said that,” the crab said, voice small as foam.

“Heh.” Eli grinned, mischief glinting like a sun-flecked wave.

“Brother Crab, you seem pretty high up among the Seafolk,” he said, words light as sea-spray.

The crab tucked his eyes into his body like a turtle into rock, trembling like reeds. “No, I’m a grunt. A deserter, even.”

“Oh? A deserter crab who can throw up a seal of that tier,” Eli said, tapping the shell with a stick of skewered tentacles like a knocker on a drum. “You must be fast.”

“N-no… I-I’m slow,” the crab stammered, claws quivering like compass needles. “Believe me. I’m weak. That seal’s just… for scaring people.”

“Then how’d you slip past ward inspections and get out?” Eli asked, voice soft as dusk rain.

“J-just… whoosh, in a flash,” the crab said, words skittering like sand crabs.

“…Not a swish?” Eli blinked, eyebrow rising like a gull.

“Uh… does that matter?”

“It matters a lot,” Eli said, rolling his eyes like moons over tide. “It decides if you’re actually fast.”

“Ah-hahaha… human friend, go home and sleep,” the crab said, smile thin as ice. “I’m spent like a dead tide.”

Eli said nothing, smiling quietly like a knife under silk as he watched the crab.

Under that gaze, the crab’s shell prickled like cold spray. He burrowed into the sand, leaving only a hump like a dune.

Eli held the same look, calm as a still lagoon, and didn’t blink.

The crab panicked, and waved both hands—no, claws—like flags in a storm. “Why’re you staring? Really, I’m done. My legs are shot like snapped reeds.”

“Look, only the big claws work,” he rattled, tapping dead legs like driftwood. “The rest are useless.”

“Oh-ho. If so, you’re useless to me,” Eli said, shrugging like a gull folding wings. “Shame. I wanted a ride in the sea.”

“Right, right. Give up that idea,” the crab urged, smile earnest as a lantern. “Go home, sleep deep. The sea’s dangerous.”

“Shame,” Eli sighed, voice thin as mist.

“Yeah, shame,” the crab echoed, like a bell in fog.

“But hey,” Eli said, eyes narrowing like a hunter’s moon. “I’ve lived long, yet never tasted your kind of crab.”

“You can’t run,” he added, voice warm as a bonfire. “War’s on. You’re no help. Why die for nothing when you can feed me?”

Eli smiled, crescent-bright as a blade.

He hefted a massive axe from nowhere like a thunderhead shouldering sky, and rested it on his shoulder like a beam of iron.

“Crab meat,” he murmured, tongue heavy as tide. “I only had it when I was young. Been a long road. I’m starving.”

“Bro, I taste bad,” the crab quaked, body shivering like a pot on boil. “I’m fishy and filthy, bro. Don’t eat me.”

“No worries. Crabs get washed before cooking, right?” Eli clapped his hands like rain on stone, smile clean as dawn.

“Like flushing out waste and such,” he added, eyeing him up and down like a cook weighing catch. “Then…”

“Don’t—don’t kill me. You—y-you—”

“What you,” Eli snapped, voice crisp as crackling ice. “You’re useless anyway. Wait for death!”

He leapt, body a hawk over waves, axe raised like a falling mountain. “Ura!”

The crab shrank in an instant like a bubble popping, and a slight figure kicked through the belly shell like a hatch blown open.

Whoosh—he streaked away like a darting eel, vanishing in a spray of sand.

Eli’s axe fell in the same heartbeat like a thunderbolt, cleaving the shell with a crack like breaking ice.

Eli stared at the fleeing shadow like a lighthouse at dusk, then raised his hand, palm steady as a stone.

Pale-blue energy gathered like frost on glass; he aimed where the little thing fled, and spoke, “Gravitic Field.”

Thump.

Sand ahead sank a few inches like a footprint pressed by a giant hand, dragged downward by invisible tide.

The small figure sprawled, limbs pinned like insects in amber. He stared at his bound body, gulping like a minnow. “What the…?”

Eli walked over with a smile like a hook under bait. “Knew it. That’s the true body.”

And then nothing more happened.

Because the small figure under gravity smiled at him like a guilty fox, and turned into a puddle of foam, vanishing like spindrift.

Behind him, the empty crab jerked up and bolted the other way like a barrel in a flood.

Eli froze, mouth open like a fish. “The hell… what was that?”

…

“Um, Mr. Eli… this isn’t right,” said an unnaturally cute “little girl,” sitting on the crab’s back like a doll on a drum, gazing at Eli.

“Call me Master,” Eli said, lounging breezy as sea-wind. “You pranked me and had fun. That dress fits you.”

“B-but I’m male,” the “little girl” whispered, twining two fingers like twigs in rain.

“Uh-huh. You’re not human,” Eli said with a shrug like drifting cloud. “Why care so much?”

“…Fine,” the little girl sighed, face ash-pale like wet paper.

He’d toyed with Eli more than once, slipping away with illusions like smoke in a gale, until Eli finally lost his temper like a storm breaking.

The little crab hadn’t expected this human’s favorite trick to be split bodies like mirrored waves, clones rippling like moonlight on water.

So he lost, as neatly as a fish into a net.

Eli caught the true body, then blinked. “You’re… this pretty?” His surprise rang like a bell.

Grashe argued hard, protesting for a long while like a drumbeat, insisting he was male and couldn’t wear such humiliating clothes. In the end, fists spoke like thunder.

The crab obeyed and wore the dress, cheeks burning like sunset on shells.

Eli stretched like a sleeping Buddha carved in stone, then posed like a playful god, eyes teasing like stars. “Talk, ‘Grandpa Crab.’ Name, identity, and what’s happening with the Seafolk.”

“Don’t lie,” he added, smile thin as a blade. “Bad mood, big appetite. I’m sick of octopus. Crab sounds nice.”

“Yes,” the little girl said, mouth puckered like a wilted flower, eyes damp as rain.

“My name’s Grashe,” he sniffled, wiping tears like dew. “I’m the current Count of the Black Crab clan, inherited from my father.”

Eli’s face stayed cold as a slate under tide. He’d seen every cutesy trick like shells on a shore.

Damn it, who could out-cute his Demonic Lord? In that arena, he was a shrine to defeat.

Grashe saw no change and sighed inside like ebbing tide. Iron-hearted man, lousy luck. Why leave home to suffer?

“I don’t know exactly what’s happening,” he said, voice low as undertow. “One day, while I slept, the Whale King died.”

“He died miserably,” Grashe whispered, words falling like cold rain. “They say someone sliced off his flesh, cut by cut, until he couldn’t bear it.”

“The Whale King was a strong candidate for Seafolk chief,” he continued, gaze drifting like kelp. “So everyone eyed the other candidates.”

“Petty clashes swelled like storm swell,” he said, hand shaking like a reed. “They fought over whether to attack the humans.”

“Three candidates, one dead,” he added, voice flat as sand. “The Whale King’s supporters split and got devoured like a school scattered.”

“My father saw chaos and locked me in,” he said, cheeks coloring like coral. “But I got bored, like a crab in a jar, and slipped out.”

Eli nodded, thoughts circling like gulls in wind, weighing each word like stones.

Then he smiled oddly and looked Grashe up and down like a fisherman eyeing a rare catch.

Grashe clutched his little skirt on instinct like guarding a pearl. “W-what do you want?”

“Relax,” Eli said, brow arched like a bow. “I’m curious how you got out if you’re this weak.”

“Spill it,” he added, voice mild as dusk. “How’d you do it?”

“Uh… that…” Grashe’s mouth twitched like a skittering crab. He didn’t want to share his secret, holding it like a warm rock.

Eli noticed, and smiled like a crescent blade. “Little crab, talk, and I’ll protect you. You know how strong I am.”

Grashe grimaced, face tight as a knot. “Then… you can’t eat me.”

“Of course.”