-Crystalia City, Sea God's Temple, ???-
A merman was laying down on a blue bed while staring at the ceiling. The merman himself had grey hair, eyes and tail and the room itself was some sort of resting chamber with minimal decoration but an awfully high amount of blue color.
"*sigh* Just, how did I get myself into this mess?" The man said to himself dejectedly. At that moment, the door opened and the one who appeared was one of the nuns and said:
"Sir, it's time."
"Time for what?" The man said seriously while getting up from the bed.
"The one who you will be teaching you has come and it's time for you to meet him and leave with him." The nun said expressionlessly.
"Alright, I'm coming in a bit." The man said that before the nun left.
"Tsk. Not even an ounce of freedom and that damned god forces me into a stupid tournament before I even had a chance to process all of this. If anyone would be happy, it'd probably be that son of a b*st*rd Soren. He would probably commint even genocide to become a merman. *sigh* Mandy, just what happened to you as well?" The merman said to himself before he left the room.
-Crystalia City, Rohan's house-
Daytime was coming for the merman race and everyone started getting ready for their usual work. There were people who were opening their shops others were making their ways towards the building they were working, the children were also making their way towards the schools. As the light was coming from the window, Soren started opening his eyes with some difficulty since he still felt that sense of sleepiness, but after rubbing his eyes a bit, that sense of sleepiness left from his eyes and saw a sleeping Lavenza coiled like a donutand snoring. The first thing Soren noticed, was that his body was in a much better shape than before. That constant feeling of pain on his entire body was way less than yesterday's situation, so Soren felt like he could move his body a lot more than before.
As he was moving his body, he also woke up Lavenza who saw Soren in a weird pose and couldn't resist laughing.
"Kyahahahahaha~!"
"Hey, what's so funny about me streching my body?" Soren asked a bit annoyed.
"Well, if you want to continue your show, then go ahead, it's pretty amusing." Rohan said with a happy expression on his face while seeing Soren and Lavenza looking as if like nothing happened.
"Oh, Rohan. Hey..." Soren still felt a bit awkward yesterday's situation. Rohan noticed his weird expression and then said:
"Relax Soren. I don't want you to feel like you are being pressured. As long as you remember to play safe, you are going to make it big someday."
"Oh... I see. Thank you." Soren said happily.
After that quick exchange, Soren and Lavenza got up from the bed couch and after cleaning it up and turning it back into a couch, they cleaned themselves and made theur way towards the kitchen. Once they entered the kitchen, they saw Matt already eating a sandwich and a blue crystal that was making some sort of static noise.
"Good morning guys." Matt said to the two of them.
"Good morning Matt. By the way, what is that blue crystal that is making noise?" Soren asked curiously.
"That is the Crystal Network which allows for sending and receiving messages. Right now though, we are waiting for the CNC to start so we can get an update on the news." Rohan explained while putting down a couple of dishes on the table that had cheese and some sort of red egg which can be assumed to be boiled.
"CNC?"
"Crystalia News Channel." Matt answered back casually.
"I see." After that, Soren and Lavenza sat down and then Rohan also sat down while putting some slices of Cruxius bread. As the three of them were eating with the static noise in the background, the noise stopped and suddenly a pompous male voice was heard.
"Good morning Mer-Folk and welcome to the morning broadcast of CNC. My name is Jeff and for today, I'm going to be your host throughout the entire day. For starters, let's start with the big, juicy piece of news, the Hero of the Mer-Folk and all the infornation that we know of. For those who missed it yesterday, the Hero's base stats reach a perfect 80 and with the special ability that the Hero has in his hands, he will be one force to be reckoned with. Also, the one who he will be studying under, will be the duke of Starlight City, Laguna Cor Fortium, so we are expecting a lot from this Hero in the near future. Now, the families..." As the pompous man was continuing his news broadcast, Soren thought to himself:
'A base status of 80. If I recall correctly, I think I was an 85 and Lavenza was a 129, so we definitely beat that guy in terms of base stats. Still, I wonder how much would the other Heroes have?'
"Hey Soren, now that word was made for that base status of the Hero, do you mind telling us yours as well? I was curious about it before, but I didn't have an opportunity to ask." Matt asked curiously.
"Do I have to? What if I want to keep it private?" Soren asked back.
"It's alright as well. I was just curious about it." Matt answered back casually while taking another bit from the sandwich.
"... Now, an important announcment for all adventurers. The forest area on the west of Crystalia City is as of now, open again, so enjoy hunting the beasts and don't die. Next..."
Once that piece of news appeared, Soren remembered the events that happened during the night hunt, the battle with the ravaged wolf, the adventure with Crus, the meeting with King Geius and the first contact with the Sea Knights. After they finished eating, Rohan then said:
"Soren, go by the Adventurer's Guild later. I'll be giving you an update on you mission later."
"Why can't you give me the update now?" Soren asked seriously.
"Because I need to update it on the guild first. Then I'll update you." Rohan said casually.
"I see. Then I guess I'll have to kill some for now. When should I go to the guild to get the update?"
"Just come to the Guild after a couple of hours. Take care." After Rohan said that, he left the house.
After Rohan the house, Soren, Lavenza and Matt were left in the house. The next one who spoke then, was Matt:
"Well, if you two need me, I'll be in my room, probably asleep. I don't get many days like these to rest, so I am going to fully enjoy this. If you two are bored, feel free to listen on the news. Those news last for a couple of hours at least, so feel free to listen till the end of the report. Catch you later guys." After Matt said that, we went into his room and locked the door.
"I guess it's just the two of us again Lavenza." Soren said with a slightly shocked expression before he added:
"You know, I started noticing a slight pattern and that pattern is usually spending the day just the two of us, with the occasional third person that tags along."
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza seemed a bit confused from Soren's statement.
"It's nothing. For now, let's check on the news for anything else of interest. There are a couple of people that I have noted down, so I would like to see if I can any news on them." Soren said seriously.
"Kyuu~." Lavenza nodded as well before the two of them sat down in front of the Crystal Network and heard the news one by one. For the next 30 minutes or so, it was mostly commecials for restaurants, shops and other kinds of enterprises, so Soren and Lavenza were pretty bored out of their minds. But after a commercial about another restaurant, a report on the church was made and Soren was paying full attention:
"After talking so long about restaurants, I need a change of topic. Thankfully, this next one will be different, since this involves the church. Our eyewitness accounts had seen a young man a couple of days ago who had a meeting with the Arch-Priestess, but when tried to talk with that individual, that man could not be found anywhere. Thankfully, we asked for the appearance of the man and that man has blue hair, green eyes and a blue tail. Now, the..."
Once that piece of news was over, Soren was dejected and felt a massive headache coming from hearing it and said:
"This is prove to be way more troublesome than it needs to be."
"Kyuu~..." Lavenza also saw that this will prove to be extremely troublesome as well.