Chapter 122: The Island of the Long-Eared People
Markin (87 years old, adult male, long-eared) was the Great King of Eromanga Island!
Originally, Markin had been the biggest fool on the island—so foolish he didn’t even realize just how foolish he was.
But one day, he suddenly fell ill and suffered for three days and nights. When he recovered, his mind felt clear and refreshed, and in a single leap he became the greatest genius on the island.
Having gained intelligence, the very first thing Markin did was enact ruthless revenge.
He cast a “love-love” spell on the childhood friend who used to mock him and pull his hair, making her fall completely in love with him.
He cast the same spell on the beautiful female teacher who had been terrible at teaching, turning her into his subordinate.
He cast it on the mean older boy who refused to sell him mangoes, ordering him to sell them to him for free.
He even cast it on Yasu, a troublesome boy who always got scolded by his parents and smeared boogers on him whenever they met, forcing him to shove a smelly tree root into his own nostrils.
His momentum didn’t stop.
With his genius intellect and powerful magic, Markin began acting with complete arrogance, escalating further and further until he cast his “love-love” spell on anyone, regardless of whether they had wronged him.
In just fifteen days, he completely took control of Eromanga Island, with a population of just under 2,000, and ascended as its king!
As king, Markin could ignore the island’s rule of monogamy.
Terrifyingly, he made his childhood friend, his stepsister, the female teacher, the island’s most beautiful girl, and even a female tourist who had gotten stranded there all his wives—building an unprecedented, unmatched grand harem. It was an act that defied even the gods.
He had cast the love spell on every islander, and being clever, he had every newborn brought to him immediately so he could cast the spell without fail. His control system had no weaknesses.
Markin was a universal genius.
He didn’t just dominate Eromanga Island—he governed it perfectly.
In effect, it was as though he held the entire world in his grasp and controlled it at will.
Only Markin, the great king of the seas, could accomplish such a feat.
The wise King Markin favored wisdom and despised foolishness.
His policies were always “smart.”
He cast his spell on the stronger monsters that appeared on the island, turning them into guardian deities.
He promoted the cultivation of medicinal herbs to avoid wasting limited medicine.
He paired excellent humans together—like breeding superior chickens—to produce superior offspring.
He abolished inefficient burials and instead had all corpses crushed and used as fertilizer or fish feed.
He invented a composite filtration system using ash, sand, and monster materials, achieving stable, safe, large-scale, and simple freshwater supply across the island.
He also pushed forward labor efficiency and automation by utilizing wind and river power.
When all of Markin’s children began to display exceptional intelligence, physical ability, and magic power without exception, he made every woman on the island his wife and diligently increased the number of excellent children.
As long as they were excellent, it didn’t matter whose children they were—but his own children were the best, so it couldn’t be helped. For decades, Markin worked tirelessly to replace all islanders with high-spec long-eared people.
The first shadow over the flawless Markin dynasty appeared after about 40 years of his reign.
The king’s children inherited his traits: blond hair, blue eyes, beauty, high physical ability, magic power, and intelligence.
Their only drawback was their slow aging—they began aging much more slowly after around age eight—but that also meant they lived long lives.
His eldest daughter, born early on, became able to have children at age 35, so he had her marry a talented young man brought with great effort from Fiji. It seemed only a matter of time before grandchildren would be born and the island would prosper even further.
However, even after five years, no children were born.
It was strange.
At first, Markin assumed it was an individual problem. He divorced the eldest daughter—who couldn’t bear children—and relegated her to a “pet” role, placing his hopes on the second and third daughters. But that also failed.
Thinking it might be the men’s problem, he tried having his daughters bear his own children—but that failed as well.
No matter how much Markin thought or tried, no grandchildren were born.
As time passed, a rumor began to spread:
“The royal bloodline is cursed.”
The rumor made sense, and Markin grew anxious.
Was his blood truly cursed?
Was it a cursed bloodline that could not produce grandchildren?
Had he foolishly spread a cursed lineage across the island…?
He didn’t want to believe it, but no matter how much he investigated or experimented, he could only reach that conclusion.
The royal bloodline was afflicted by a curse that prevented grandchildren from being born.
By the 60th year of his reign, 95% of the island’s population had been replaced by his children.
The transformation had progressed too far to return to the original society.
For now, that wasn’t an issue.
But if no grandchildren were born, then even with their long lifespans, within 1,000 years the population would fail to reproduce and the islanders would die out.
Markin’s kingdom, which should have been eternal, was fated to collapse under the cruel passage of time.
He even considered a policy of eliminating all his children and resetting the environment—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Markin himself had once been a useless fool—a defective being.
His children, afflicted by the blood curse, were also defective and often irritated him.
But disposing of them would feel like disposing of his former self, and that disgusted him.
His reason told him to eliminate the children and start over for the sake of the future, but his miserable memories from long ago rejected that idea.
Though he couldn’t come up with a perfect solution, he decided that if he periodically sent boats outside the island to bring back new women and add them to his wives, he could at least avoid extinction from future population decline.
He disliked relying on the outside world for the foundation of his island’s survival—but there was no other choice.
After much agonizing, Markin ultimately decided to take a long-term approach.
The king and his children had long lifespans.
Long-term problems could be tackled over the long term.
There was no problem that the genius Markin couldn’t solve.
He was the proud ruler of Eromanga Island.
He would never lose to a blood curse!
And so, while continuing trial and error to break the curse, one day—
Three visitors arrived on Eromanga Island.
The intelligence officer reported that the three newcomers were tensely gathering information after landing.
Looking at their portraits, the visitors were: a woman with a seductive face, a woman with a large chest, and a man with a striking backside.
Moreover, all three possessed magic power on par with Markin.
“Oh? Not bad. Maybe I’ll make all of them my wives.”
Sitting on his throne, Markin said this cheerfully, and the intelligence officer nodded happily.
The issue of magic power disparity had long been on his mind.
Markin possessed immense magic power. Perhaps the curse came from having children with women whose magic was far inferior? It was a reasonable suspicion.
Furthermore, according to the portraits and report, the man with the striking backside was astonishingly a pureblood long-eared individual from outside the island, just like Markin.
If he could somehow make that man bear his child, the result would be a long-eared child born from two purebloods with abundant magic power—likely free from the curse. A logical conclusion.
All three were to his liking—it was like fish jumping into his boat on their own.
Perhaps he had even cast his love spell on the goddess of fortune and simply forgotten.
In high spirits, Markin sent messengers to invite the three visitors to the palace.
About two hours later, the visitors arrived, accompanied by a few curious onlookers.
A woman with a seductive face holding a beautiful blue staff.
A horned woman with a large, imposing figure.
And a blond, blue-eyed man resembling a version of Markin aged up by about ten years.
These three.
Leaning forward from his throne, Markin stared intently at them with great interest, but they also stared back at him and spoke:
“You’re not Iruma. But you resemble him—both in appearance and in how you do things.”
“You’re similar to Iruma in a lot of ways, but… how should I put it… you really match the island’s name!!”
“Ah… sorry, we’ve only just met, but for some reason, looking at your face makes my skin crawl. I don’t think I can make a fair judgment. Of course, we’re just foreigners here, and interfering with another country’s customs might be wrong. But this is…”
The man shifted his gaze to the eldest daughter standing beside the throne, then quickly looked away.
She had long ago been demoted to a “pet” role and wasn’t allowed to wear clothes; instead, she wore cat ears and a collar, serving the king like a “kitty.”
It was a system Markin himself had created. Perhaps it seemed unusual to outsiders.
Judging that the blond man—accompanied by two stunning women—was the leader, Markin addressed him solemnly:
“Welcome to Eromanga Island, honored guests.”
“…Thank you for the welcome. I’m Conrad Williams. I came here to meet you. These two are my friends. If possible, I’d like us to talk peacefully without using magic. Regardless of how things end, I want to first understand what kind of person you are.”
“I see.”
Markin’s interest was piqued—not just by Conrad’s words, but also by his appearance and clothing.
The visitors themselves—and even their attire—were unusual.
“That clothing… a composite of monster materials and an unknown metal, isn’t it? The method is probably a secret, but I can tell. It must have high magic resistance. A structure suited to this age of monsters—something that didn’t exist before. Let me guess—you dissolve metal and soak threads made from processed dragon sinew into it, right? That’s the best way to weave monster materials.”
His beautiful yet unsettling blue eyes fixed on them like a bottomless swamp.
He gathered information, compared it to his knowledge, analyzed it, and greedily pursued the truth.
“But that luster—I’ve never seen it. There’s no sign of the metal peeling. A new material more compatible with sinew than gold or silver? Perhaps a new metal that didn’t originally exist on Earth, processed with magic…”
As Markin muttered, organizing his thoughts, the horned woman turned pale and nudged Conrad.
“Hey, Conrad—this guy’s dangerous!!! He’s not just some pervy kid!!! He’s definitely an Iruma-type!!!”
“That’s enough. We’re sealing him. I don’t want to give him any more time to think.”
“Guess we have no choice. Do it. Sorry, King Markin—if you must resent someone, resent me.”
“…Huh? Seal me? What are you talking about? There’s no ruler more excellent than me—why would you—”
For nearly 80 years, Markin had never been defied.
Since becoming a transcendent, he had never fought anyone equal or stronger.
He had never left the island and knew nothing of the outside world.
And although his intelligence had increased dramatically, he had originally been a fool.
Only when the three—who had carried an ominous aura from the start—raised their weapons did it finally occur to him that these visitors might harm him.
Deeply shocked, he nevertheless reacted quickly—leaping behind his throne and grabbing his “pet” as a shield.
“Merciful Wewenta, grant me—”
A light projectile curved around the throne and shield as if it had a will of its own, smashing into his jaw and interrupting his chant.
His children, who tried to stop the attackers, staggered all at once.
Ice shackles crawled over their limbs, and darkness filled their vision.
Markin knew only his own magic.
He didn’t know the standard tactic of interrupting long incantations with short ones.
He didn’t know monsters that could chant three spells at once with three mouths.
He didn’t know near-instant death spells that rendered defense meaningless.
He didn’t know silent casting.
Above all, because of the precedent of Iruma—the worst kind of mage—he had never even imagined a situation where three fully armed top-tier transcendents would come for his life with perfect coordination.
In short—
Markin knew nothing of the world.
In that brief clash, Markin instantly realized his fatal ignorance. At the same time, he rapidly analyzed the situation and began considering countermeasures in his mind.
Knowledge, weapons, armor, experience, skill, guards, vigilance, strategy—he needed all of it.
But it was already too late. The visitors had acted in such a way that it would be too late for Markin no matter what.
In any case, the castle built on sand collapsed.
“—Sleep in the eternal permafrost, E-Nasheka Vaara—”
The spell released from the blue staff captured the king.
Even his dying words froze in place, and King Markin of Eromanga was sealed into a cold, deathlike slumber along with his throne.
The dynasty collapsed in an instant at the hands of envoys from a foreign land.
The king’s children who had been in the throne room recovered from their dizziness and were bewildered to find that the magic mark of control that had been with them since birth had vanished.
They murmured anxiously among themselves, unable to hide their confusion.
Since the moment they became aware, they had lived exactly as the king instructed.
There had never been a single moment otherwise.
Even after being freed from puppet magic, the children—who knew no way of life other than obedience—continued to think and act as they always had.
“W-what do we do? Did the king die!?”
“We have to break the ice and save him!”
The youthful-looking boys and girls, who resembled the king, rushed all at once toward the block of ice encasing him.
The three visitors watched them with a sense of melancholy.
The ice of the great glacier magic was no ordinary substance.
Moreover, it could not be melted without special magic.
What would become of these children of cursed blood, who had lived under the king’s control, now that they had lost him?
Even if the king had been the root of all evil, it was the children who would suffer because of it.
Even if he had been a dangerous figure who had to be sealed for the sake of the world, to the islanders he must have been a great father and king. Even if they had only been made to think so—it was still their reality.
The three sank into dark thoughts, wondering what future awaited these children who had lost their distorted banner.
“But… would saving the king actually benefit the island?”
However—
At that one muttered remark from a child, everyone froze.
The atmosphere shifted.
“Hey, Hiyo-chan!! This might be—!!”
“…Yeah. Maybe this was more self-inflicted than we thought.”
The king’s indoctrination had undoubtedly taken deep root in the children.
And so, following his teachings, they began thinking in cold, efficient terms.
“Hm? Maybe we’re fine even without the king…?”
“Honestly, we can manage things ourselves.”
“Then there’s no problem. Helping the king and opposing these people would be worse for the island.”
“Then let’s not save him.”
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Meow.”
“I think you can speak normally now, big sis.”
“Oh? Really?”
“Yeah. According to Markin Law, when the owner dies, pets are freed from their status.”
“Right, right.”
It was both the blood of the efficiency-driven Markin and the result of the education they had received since childhood.
The children quickly made a detached, rational decision—and abandoned the king without hesitation.
The king, who had valued cold efficiency above all else, was in turn discarded by that same logic.
It was entirely self-inflicted.
Among the king’s children, the eldest girl—who just moments ago had been wearing cat ears and walking on all fours—stood upright, threw aside her costume, and addressed the three transcendents with a serious expression:
“Welcome to Eromanga Island. We would like to offer you our hospitality, but in the event of a murder on the main island, the holder of royal authority is responsible for conducting the trial. Since the former king has been killed, that authority has now passed to me. Therefore, I will be the one to preside over your trial. However, even if we were to hold such a trial, I must admit that we lack the means to properly enforce any sentence upon you. Therefore, as an exceptional measure, we will forgo a pointless trial. Judging from your words and actions, it seems your purpose in coming here was to deal with the king. Now that this has been accomplished, what do you seek from us? We would prefer to discuss something mutually beneficial, if possible.”
“…Ah, first—some clothes.”
The gentlemanly Conrad draped a tablecloth—produced with magic—over the girl, who stood there completely naked without shame.
After waiting for her to compose herself, he responded politely:
“We have one request. We would like to take your father’s frozen body off Eromanga Island and manage it ourselves. If you absolutely refuse, we won’t force the issue—but in that case, we would like to station an observer from our country on the island. In either case, we promise fair compensation. The reason we’re doing this is a long story. We’d like to sit down and explain our circumstances—and we’d also like to hear in detail what has happened on Eromanga Island since your father’s reign began.”
Standing beside the hero who was calmly speaking such suggestive words without realizing it, the Blue Witch and the Hell Witch once again had to exert considerable effort to keep their expressions from slipping.
The king of Eromanga had been successfully sealed.
And Eromanga Island—seemed likely to find peace.