Transmigrated as the Cuck.... WTF!!!

The title they gave me, the one that sat an inch below Wannre's name on paper and ten leagues above my actual authority in practice, meant nothing.

It looked impressive in a scroll or when you pinned it to a chest like some cheap badge in a tavern game, but out here it was weightless.

A hollow name.

Worse than that, really. At least a videogame title makes the owner feel proud for a hot minute. This one only made other people itch to humiliate the bearer.

Nobody in Aquis Vanlur wanted to answer to a land dweller, let alone a human. Imagine handing a lion a collar and telling the pride to salute it.

That was my "honour." Even when the edict came straight from Wannre herself, the reaction was the same: cold glares, whispered curses behind fins, the sort of ornate politeness that hides knives. So for two days I did what made the least trouble and gave me the most info. I walked.

I wandered the palace outskirts. I let the currents push me where they wanted, eavesdropping on the muffled, polite animosity of nobles when they thought no human could hear.

I learned the angles they watched from, the corners they avoided. I memorised faces. I memorised grievances. I memorised which guards blinked when their masters spoke.

Wannre told me to remain close. Her instruction was wrapped in velvet, counsel, not command.

At first I thought about ignoring her. I am not exactly the type to sit by while someone maps me out and calls it "opportunity."

But the longer I stayed, the less likely that sounded like rebellion and the more it sounded like strategy. She had a plan embedded into her offer.

Not necessarily cruel in the immediate sense, but layered. She liked experiments. She liked control. That meant whatever she planned for me was not a single-use exploit. It was an investigation.

So I played the obedient pawn. I kept close enough for her to notice, far enough not to become claustrophobic, and I did all the small things that made me invisible until I needed not to be.

On the second morning after my silent reconnaissance, a messenger arrived. Wannre requested my presence.

The corridor to her chamber felt longer that day. The palace air was cool, the salt and metal of it promising hidden currents and old debts.

The doors to her room opened with that soft hydraulic sigh merfolk architects love. Lanterns of floating bioluminescent algae cast soft halos, and the furniture looked carved from coral older than the families who argued over it.

There she was. Wannre, sprawled across that ludicrously oversized bed like a sovereign who had decided sleep was a political act.

She was curled into herself, fins tucked, and for a blink she looked—ridiculous. A million-year-old empress reduced to a messy, human-looking heap.

Her hair was a ragged halo. Her face was half-hidden by a blanket of scales and sea silk. She looked exhausted, disheveled, almost pitiful in that peculiar way old predators do when their claws go dull. For a second I let myself feel the absurd amusement of seeing a goddess look like a street urchin.

What did I do? Of course I kicked her. I kicked because the sight begged for a reaction. It was a test. It was also the most honest thing I could do in the room.

Swooosh!

I vanished from the doorway in a single breath, the world blurring around me as I cut through the chamber's still air. My body twisted mid-dash, every muscle snapping tight, and with the momentum coiling down into one perfect strike, I lashed out with my right leg.

Crack!

The sharp sound echoed like a whip through the room. But what split was not bone. Not flesh. Not even the slumbering form of Wannre I had so confidently targeted.

No, the splintered ruin before me was a wooden table, its legs buckling, its polished surface snapping clean down the middle. Shards scattered across the stone floor like fleeing minnows.

The "Wannre" I had aimed for dissolved into nothing more than a mirage.

My lips curved upward. Amusement, not disappointment, painted my face.

"Interesting," I said, voice low and pleased, the thrill of discovery simmering in my chest. "So you have tricks besides water control and a dangerously pretty face."

From the actual bed, the far corner where I had not bothered to look closely enough, the real Wannre sat lounging like a queen at leisure. She smirked, eyes gleaming with delight at my little mistake, at my little display.

"Yes," she purred, tilting her head with deliberate slowness, "surely you didn't think I only possessed something as minor as water control. Did you? Because if you did…" She leaned forward, a sly grin spreading across her lips. "…I would be quite displeased."

Her tone was playful. Disarmingly so. The very opposite of the stern, statuesque tyrant she had been at the gathering, where her every word carried the weight of decree and her silence bore the weight of judgement.

Here, now, that mask had been shed. This was her—her true self, or at least the closest thing she allowed others to glimpse.

I rolled my shoulders in a casual shrug. "Truthfully? With how ridiculous your mastery over water is, you can't really blame me for assuming that was the full measure of your power."

"Hahaha!" She threw her head back, laughing loud and without care, the sound filling the chamber like rippling waves crashing over stone.

"True, true! But even then…" Her gaze sharpened, lips curling in wicked amusement. "How would you explain this charm of mine? Surely you wouldn't be foolish enough to claim it's simply a quirk of birth, something uniquely mine by chance of bloodline."

I blinked at her, completely serious, and answered with the same straightforward honesty I always did. "It isn't?"

Her reaction was priceless. Eyes wide, she gasped as though I had blasphemed against the very ocean. "Oh! You really thought so? I didn't expect you to be that naïve. I thought better of you."

Her tone, her teasing lilt, her casual dismissal, it was starting to gnaw at me, tugging at the edges of my patience. But I gave her nothing. No twitch of annoyance, no slip of irritation. Instead, I asked with deliberate calm, "So you trained for it? Like your water control? Is this charm something I could learn, something I could make my own?"

She tapped her chin in mock thought, fingers drumming lightly, expression far too lazy to be genuine.

I could tell from the start she wasn't actually considering my question; she was stretching it out, indulging herself, relishing the little performance.

She let the silence draw long, two full minutes of exaggerated contemplation, until finally her lips parted.

"From what I recall," she said, her voice adopting that lecturing air I had come to expect, "only merfolk and our subspecies possess the gift of illusion. It is a birthright, tied into our veins as tightly as scales to skin. Other races… they carry their own peculiar talents. You humans, for instance, wield the innate ability to adapt to any element. That is your gift, a dangerous, enviable one. One none of us can imitate."

Her smirk widened, proud and sharp. "We, on the other hand, are bound. Every merfolk, from the lowest hatchling to the rarest prodigy, belongs to the dominion of water. Even our exceptions, even those you'd call 'special,' are still tethered to the ocean. Illusions, charms, songs, currents—all of it stems from water. Always water. That is both our blessing and our shackle."

I tilted my head, studying her words, her posture, the light in her eyes. I was trying to assess her credibility. Which from the looks of it, seemed perfect. She seemed trustworthy.