The Empty Coral Forest. The stories of this forest say that a scary monster lives alone in this area and it is said this monster is so scary, that the other monsters' sixth sense is always screaming the message: "GET OUT OF THERE! DANGER! DO NOT APPROACH!" But for one lone Sea Wolf, this message appeared only for an instant before it disappeared. The beast itself was confused for the reason of the danger warning appearing only for a moment, but it didn't give it any thought before continuing on its merry way, towards its final battle.
...
In a smal clearing that was in the middle of the coral forest, there 3 living being that were engaged in combat. A merman with a broken sword, a baby leviathan and a lone and hungry Sea Wolf.
"Alright Lavenza, let's do it again. 1-2 Strike! Go!"
After Soren said that, he immidiately charged at the Sea Wolf as fast as he could with his sword in hand, but instead of using the sword to hit him, he used his shoulder to ram into it, dealing decent damage and immidiately after, Lavenza followed it up with another water ball spell, delivering the final blow on the wild beast.
"Kyuu~ Kiki~!!" Lavenza sounded very happy.
"You leveled up? Cool! Let me check you."
Name: Lavenza
Race: Leviathan
LV: 3
HP: 60 (+12)
MP: 76 (+14)
STR: 11 (+3)
VIT: 10 (+2)
AGL: 23 (+4)
INT: 38 (+7)
WIS: 31 (+6)
RFL: 22 (+3)
LCK: 25 (+4)
Skills (Active): Mana Ball, Water Ball, Water Shot (!), Bite LV.2(!)
Skills (Passive): Mana Manipulation LV.1, Water Magic LV.2(!), Soft-Scaled, Partnership
Titles: Life-Bound Companions (Soren), Daughter of the Arch-Priestess Laventhign
After seeing the new stats Soren said with a happy expression:
"Woah, not bad little girl. You even learned yourself a new spell. Do you think you can show it?"
"Kyuu~." At that moment a small water ball appeared in front of her, but in the next moment, the small water flew towards a random coral tree at an extremely high speed, as if it was bullet.
"Sweet blast. There is no way anything could dodge this attack. Man, I am so jealous right now."
"Kyuu~?"
"Because you know magic, that's why. The fact that you can cast litterally a few minutes after you were born, while I know how pour mana out of my hand only."
"Kyuu~..."
"Don't feel dejected, just because i said that i was jealous of you knowing magic. Besides that was something you were born with, so you should hold your head up high, with pride. Besides I'll probably have opportunities in the future to learn magic."
"Kyuu~ Kyuu~!"
'Honestly, the last thing i want after seeing her going through that traumatizing experience, is another pile of crap just because i have a slightly bad mood.' Soren thought to himself. He didn't want her to go through that again. But there was another lingering question on his head right now. 'Why did so many monsters appear so suddenly?' Yesterday, when he arrived in this world, there was no living organism that could move, in the radius of at least, a decent amount of the forest, but now they had encountered at least 4 Sea Wolves.
"Thank god for the fact that Sea Wolves are prideful monsters, since if we were to deal with a pack of them, we would be decimated within seconds."
The two of them have been swimming for quite a while, without anything to eat, so they have been feeling quite hungry, but they didn't have anything to eat. They were out of Fijouri fruit cans and they didn't know how to skin the Sea Wolves to eat them, even if they did somehow managed to pull it off, they couldn't cook the meat, since they were underwater so they would have to resort eating raw meat, which would be impossible, at least for Soren.
"I just hope we can meet up with someone so we can get directions." Soren said dejected before sighing.
"Kyuu~..." Lavenza nodded in a slightly dejected manner.
For now they kept swimming for a while towards the general direction of the city. After a little while, they managed to reach sort of stone path.
"Lavenza, are you seeing the stone path as I am seeing it right now?" Said Soren with a serious look on his face.
"Kyuu~." Lavenza nodded with a serious tone.
"I guess we are close to the Crystalia City right now." Soren said happily.
"Kyuuhu~!" Lavenza nodded excitedly.
After swimming on the stone path for a little while, they met with a lone traveler. The traveler had cyan hair, blue eyes, his tail had cyan round scales and had a pouch tied on his back. The man himself, was a bit suprised by seeing the young merman traveling alone with a baby sea serpent, so he decided to ask, since these roads rarely had any travelers.
"Now, this is a rare sight. We don't get a lot of travelers on these roads." The man said with a relaxed look on his face.
When he heard the man talking to him, he decided to answer back to him in a cashal manner as well.
"Really? I thought these road were conpletely abandoned. I guess there are still people using them."
The man was a bit confused by the casual remark so he decided to ask.
"Anyways, what brings you here, little boy?"
"What brings me here? I would like to know that as well." Soren answered back.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll give you the short version of the story for now. I was traveling alone on the way towards Crystalia City, since i had to meet up with a friend. At some point along the way, i suddenly blacked out for no reason and the monent i woke up, all of the stuff that i had with me were gone, even my clothes were taken." Soren lied straight through his teeth. He knew he couldn't say anything about being a human from another world, since he didn't know what kind of repercussions could have, so from the information he had obtained, he tried to make the most believable story he could think.
"I see... Then where did you get the clothes?" The man asked with a hint of suspicion in his eyes.
"I found them in an abandoned fort east of here. Just swim for a few hours until you reach that place. Same with this piece of broken junk." Then Soren showed the broken sword.
"Interesting, did you find anything else in the fort?"
"Aside from these rags and this piece of junk, I only found a couple of cans of Fijouri fruit and nothing else." Soren said with a calm face.
"Then may i ask about the sea serpent that is with you?"
"Lavenza was just an abandoned baby that i found in the forest. She was alone and trembling a lot when i first saw her, as if she was too afraid to even move or notice anything. So I decided to check on her, but she didn't noticed me at all when I touched her, so i decided to pick her up and take her somewhere else for now and after a little while she stopped trembling and started swimming around me. So i figured that she wanted to be with me, hence i gave her, her name and now she is traveling with me." Soren again lied through his again with an even more elaborate lie. He couldn't say anything about the fact that Lavenza was the daughter of an arch-priestess, lest he wanted to court death.
"So what brings you here mister...?" Soren decided to ask the man.
"The name's Matt. As for the reason I'm here, let's just say i have to investigate a sudden change in the forest and its causes." The man named Matt said a bit evasively.
"I hope you can finish your investigation without any problems mister Matt. By the way, do you know the way towards Crystalia City, since i'm a bit lost right now."
"Oh, then i guess you can thank your lucky stars right now, since this stone path litterally takes you to the east gate of Crystalia City. Just walk down the road on that direction and within twenty minutes, you will reach the gates and as long as you haven't done anything illegal, you won't be having any problems getting in." Matt explained.
"Alright, thank you mister Matt. Take care." Soren waved his hand before he started swimming.
"Kyuu~ Kyuu~!" Lavenza tried to wave her tail in a similar way Soren waved his hand.
"Take care kid." Matt waved back at them before he went on his own way.
After Soren and Lavenza disappeared from Matt's sight, Matt suddenly took out a seashell that was vibrating from the pouch he was carrying.
"Hello?" Matt answered.
...
"Yeah, I'm on the way there. I just had a quick distraction on the way."
...
"Just some greenhorn kid whose stuff was stolen and a baby sea serpent."
...
"Nah, I doubt it. I don't think he would have balls to lie to my face, lest he wanted a tango with death."
...
"Fine, fine, I'll get on the way to check things out. You said the place was called "Border East Garrison Fort", right? What a weird name."
...
"Alright, alright, i won't judge the naming sense of our ancestors. But why do you want me to check that place in particular?"
...
"You are not making things easier for me, y'know." Matt sighed at that point.
...
"Alright, take care brother." *click*
After Matt closed the shellphone, he started swimming towards the abandoned fort.