The Dark Rebirth of Pandora: Revenge of the Abyss

Chapter 700: Calypso Final Part

"Lisandra!! What do you think?" I ask, wearing the maid uniform she picked out for me. The outfit fits my frame well — since these are clothes mermaids wear, they come in a wide range of sizes and adjustments.

"It looks perfect. Your posture is impeccable too," she says, helping me finish a few minor adjustments around the chest area.

"Now... I have several matters to deal with, but most of them are private, so I can’t let you handle those. Yours will have to wait. So for now, your options are exploring the palace—"

"Highly not recommended, seeing as if you so much as break the tiniest, most minuscule object, Delphina-sama will implode your body with magic."

"Or staying close to me while I work."

"Wow... so many options, haha!" I say without sarcasm, more as a joke, since the only safe option is sticking close to her.

"I’ll stay with you," I tell her, and she takes me along. As she guides me, I glance around. The place really is beautiful, and the atmosphere is extremely silent — quite different from Pandora’s castle, which is always noisy and lively.

"Kyaaa!! Water snake!!" Someone suddenly screams and hurls something at my head. I hear the impact of a pan as footsteps scramble away, followed by a sound like a pop.

"...?!" I stand there confused. I didn’t see who it was. Lisandra just sighs.

"Sorry about that. There’s a serpentine monster called a water snake that lives in areas with volcanic activity. They always seem to be in flames, even underwater, and they devour everything in their path... Seeing only your tail, you do bear a slight resemblance..." she says with a note of regret in her voice.

"And that popping sound—"

"Ignore it. It’s better that way." Lisandra bends down, picks up the pan, and sets it on a small table for someone to retrieve later. She resumes walking while I use magic to sense everything around us. The atmosphere is still somewhat tense even without Delphina here.

"Hmm... you work a lot. Don’t you ever get a break?"

"No. Working for Delphina has zero moments of rest. The only break we get is when we finish one task and there isn’t another one lined up right after... but it’s not bad. Most of the work is fairly light."

"I get it. Working for Pandora is tough, even though it’s really good. In the past, our work was also 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year!! But things have calmed down now, so we’ve been getting vacations, rest, and proper time off."

"..." She steps into an office-type room with a desk and some paperwork, along with a few other things that look like relics, though I have no idea what they do.

"You’re lucky. It’s not that I have complaints about my job, but if I said working for Delphina-sama is hard, she’d probably kill me," she says with a smile — but I know it’s no joke.

"Don’t worry!! I know working here must be difficult, but it’s still a job for a goddess. It must be pretty exciting for you, right?" I ask, watching her sit down in the chair while I settle onto a corner of the desk where I won’t get in her way.

She looks at me, then at where I’m sitting, and says nothing, so I take that as a yes.

"I like it, but... I don’t know... I wish I could go to the surface... I accepted this job mainly because it allowed me to leave the sea... I do like Delphina-sama, but being trapped in the sea without being able to leave it is..." She trails off, holding herself back.

But she doesn’t need to finish. The conversation makes it clear where this is heading. Mermaids can’t leave the sea unless it’s to abduct men near the coast, and even then, she has to return to the sea quickly.

"If you want... I could talk to Pandora. I think she could grant you that freedom. Pandora’s been really busy lately, but I’m her friend, so I think she’d work something out."

"Really?" Lisandra looks at me with hope in her eyes.

"Yes. I’d love to take you to visit some places. Of course, it’d be hard to bring you to my territory since it’s so hot, but still, there are plenty of places we could visit together as friends."

"...Wouldn’t it be risky? I don’t want Delphina-sama to kill me for seeming ungrateful... or for her to kill you for trying to do something you shouldn’t."

"Ah, relax! Pandora will figure something out!! Besides, Delphina is way too busy with Pandora to pay attention to something like that!!" I say confidently.

"...You seem to have a lot of faith in Pandora. Why? Pandora is similar to Delphina, but far less tyrannical... if I’m allowed to put it that way..."

"Pandora is incredible!! Not because she was born special. We’ve had many demon kings before, and even though Pandora is the daughter of the Goddess of the Abyss, there was already a daughter before her — Azraelith."

"In other words, Pandora didn’t inherit everything out of nowhere. She built it block by block with help and effort, and that effort is something I deeply respect. I won’t deny she had her advantages, but they didn’t define her success."

"Among us demons, we’ve had dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of lazy demon kings. The position almost became synonymous with power, wealth, fame, glory, battle, and then death."

"Pandora didn’t go down that path. She didn’t just coast through the future waiting for her day to die! She pushed forward even when everything was against her. That alone is more than enough for me."

"I’m incredibly proud to have been part of Pandora’s story. And in the future, when I die, even if no one remembers who I was, I’ll still be satisfied with what I achieved." I say this to Lisandra, who glances at the papers in front of her and smiles.

"Your perspective is wonderful... I’ve never seen it that way... I think everyone who doesn’t know her just sees Pandora as someone who was lucky to be born at the top — myself included. I mean, demon king, goddess, absurd power... it all just seems like it came out of nowhere to someone like me, who’s never witnessed her journey," Lisandra admits, looking a bit embarrassed.

"...Lisandra, I think probably neither you, nor I, nor anyone else will ever truly grasp the full scope of everything Pandora had to sacrifice to reach where she is now. But we can make the most of her success and the things she accomplished as inspiration for the future."

"...You’re absolutely right!! So I’ll take a little inspiration from that. Now, you can help me out — if you make a mistake, I’ll fix it quickly." Lisandra calls me over to work.

"...Ah... okay!!" I accept, even though I feel like I got roped into this by talking too much. Still, I’m going to help my friend. This is the first time she’s ever tried to share her work — usually she’s always too "afraid" Delphina will kill her out of nowhere! So obviously, I’m not about to complain about her progress.