"You have to be quiet. They're coming." The man whispered to the woman.
"I-It hurts!" She cried. "I can't hold it back."
It was a young couple dressed in dated attire. The guy had a tunic and pants made from some kind of terry cloth, and the woman was wearing a simple dress, although it was a bit finer than his clothing. They appeared to be quite young, only in their teens, and they also looked tired and scared.
"Here… b-bite on this." He pulled his belt off and put it in her mouth. "If they find us. They will kill us. We have to remain quiet. We can hide in these reeds."
The reeds they were talking about were my reeds. There was a series of green plants growing out of the edge of my water. It did create a good area to hide in, but their presence was bending all of my grass! This part of my pond held a special significance. Over the years, I reckoned this was the area I had first reincarnated in. The reeds kept the fish and currents out, making it a rather safe place for a starting prokaryote to expand. Now, my reincarnation spot was being soiled by a couple of humans.
"Oi! What are you all doing?" I demanded although I realized I didn't have a voice to speak.
Instead, the pond just boiled slightly, something the two were far too distracted to notice. I supposed I could have attacked them, but I was far too flustered by their sudden appearance and strange actions. Plus, I was still sleepy. I had destroyed a large part of my body and descended into a state of suspension. That wasn't something I could wake up from in a few moments.
"Gmmmmm!" The girl cried out, and I felt something gushing into my pond.
"What the hell?" My senses covered the two of them, and that's when I realized she wasn't wearing any panties.
Under her dress, she was completely naked! I could see and feel everything. Hey, I wasn't being perverted here. She went inside me! That also meant I could send all of the guys, but he at least had pants on, and I wasn't going to go out of my way to sense anything about him either.
"This is… her water broke!"
I was a biologist, not a medical doctor. There was a big difference! I didn't know the first thing about labor or pregnancy. I did know that her water breaking meant the thing was coming though. Wait, where was the thing coming? Her baby was in my pond! I heard of a water birth, but this was fucking ridiculous. Did she know how dirty this pond was? She couldn't have a baby in me. She didn't know where I'd been! I didn't know where she'd been too. I could guess where the guy had been.
"Breath, breath…" The guy whispered.
"Yeah… thanks, I am." I relaxed a bit and then realized he probably wasn't talking about me.
"Mmm…" She cried and shivered.
"She's cold…"
How could she not be cold? She was down to her neck in murky pond water. I didn't know temperatures that well, but I knew it was currently somewhere in the midrange for temperature extremes I had felt. By my guess, it was probably late fall.
"Alright, I need to produce heat. For that… I need my high energy burning cells."
I began multiplying the cells and spacing them around the pair. Since I had wiped out so many cells, I had plenty of room to expand. I had nearly 300,000 cells to work with, so I quickly surrounded them. I then began to have them burn sugar like crazy. However, I used the skill Decoupling. The energy wasn't being produced as sugar was burned. Since energy couldn't be created or destroyed, it had to go somewhere, so it began to be released as heat.
It was hard to judge time, but she went through about three rounds of contractions before she stopped shaking.
"Is it… feeling warm to you?" The guy asked.
The girl glared at him, her mouth still filled with leather. He blushed slightly. However, I didn't pay attention to their flirtation. My mind was on the next problem. My water was dirty! Why had I let it get to this point? This wasn't a sterile condition from which to have a baby. Even swimming here for sport was a foolish decision. I could even see things on a cellular level, and I could see bacteria flooding toward her, ready to penetrate every micro-abrasion to spread out of control.
If my immune system worked well enough for me, it should be able to help her too. I immediately started up my macrophages and Antibodies. I began to wage war against any cells in the pond that sought to get close. I no longer cared about the balance in the pond. I was the pond, and it would bend to my will. No one could pass into her vagina!
"Vagina!"
That was right… if she was pregnant, then there was such a thing as dilation, right? This told me how far she was from having a baby. I wasn't some creep, this was something that needed checking! Her clueless boyfriend didn't seem to be doing anything but keeping our watch while trying to make her stay quieter. Her muffled groans still came from time to time. I controlled my cell bodies, creating the equivalent of two fingers, and then I slid them inside.
"Mmm!" Her eyes popped open.
"Six centimeters… I think… it needs to be ten before the baby can come." I coughed in embarrassment.
Once I pulled out of her, she relaxed a bit. Her husband didn't seem to notice anything though. He had a dagger in his blade and was fingering it as he stared out into the dark. That's when I heard it. It was the sound of twigs breaking. There were footsteps as someone was approaching from the forest. No, it wasn't one person, but a couple of people.
"They ran this way. They're close." A gruff man spoke as he emerged from the forest.
"Why do they always run?" Another asked. "Why can't they die easily?"
"Whatever, it's good money for us." The other chuckled.
"They're fleeing for their lives, they're just kids. I think the girl is pregnant. Why don't we just say they're dead and head back."
"You idiot! Boss ordered us, no witnesses!"
So, they were being hunted down. Here I was thinking the guy was being paranoid. These appeared to be men wearing makeshift armor and holding swords. If I had to guess, they were probably mercenaries.
This world appears to be fantasy, as I expected.
Up until that point, I had no gauge to compare, but now that I saw a few people, I could confirm that this wasn't the same world I lived in before. It wasn't a modern world at all. I had already had my guesses based on the mana stat, but it appeared like I did exist in some fantasy world of swords and magic. Well, my mana still said zero, but then the talking fish appeared to use some kind of water magic, and combined with this final clue, I had a good idea of what kind of world I was in. I didn't know the specifics of it, but I appeared to be in some magical fantasy setting.
Those mercenaries seemed determined to kill those two teenagers. Normally, I would mind my own business, but these two happened to be in my pond. I didn't want their dead bodies stinking up the place. Plus, there was a baby. I might have given up my humanity, but you didn't need to be a human to know you don't murder pregnant women.
The boy and his pregnant girlfriend went quiet, both very aware of the approaching steps. The pond was the only thing out in this clearing, so they seemed to head straight there. They ended up only a few dozen steps away from the pair hiding in the reeds. As he got close enough, my senses could better see these men, and one of them immediately gave me an uneasy feeling.
This was the same uneasy feeling I had gotten when I encountered the kingfish. I realized that this must mean he had evolved. I didn't know how I knew, but I knew that in a fight, he'd be the most difficult. He would slaughter that boy with the dagger.
"Ah, I'm thirsty." One of the mercenaries laughed, kneeling at the side of the pond.
Don't be stupid, kid.
I could see the look on the boy's face as he fingered his knife. He was wondering if he threw himself at them, could he buy time for his girl to get away? She was in no position to move. Her body shook as she desperately tried to keep herself from letting out another moan. She had her hand over her mouth, her eyes watering as she knew a single noise would be death. I watched the tense scene like a mildly-interested spectator as he scooped up some water and brought it to his mouth.
"Pssss, Pwa!" The man spit out the water back into the pond. "This shit is rancid! This pond is disgusting!"
He hit the surface of the water like he was slapping me. At least, it felt like a personal attack. If I had eyes, they'd be narrowing dangerously.
At that moment, the girl's foot slipped on some pond muck, and the water splashed slightly. The three men turned to the reeds in an instant.
I cursed for their bad luck, moving before I realized what I was doing. On the other side of the lake, a bunch of water erupted like an explosion. I created several more eruptions of water, moving to the edge of the lake and then the shore. Compared to the little splash the girl made, this sounded like a person was desperately making a mad dash to the edge of the pool. One could be confused for a turtle or fish, while the other could only be a large multicellular being in panic.
"He's over there!"
It was too dark for them to see the other side of the pond, but they could see water splashing in the darkness. The three men immediately dashed off, running around the pond and to the other side. There, they could see evidence of water splashed up onto the short.
"He went that way!" One of the men seemed to follow the path of water I created with my Water Jet.
I had upgraded it to the point it was more like a water cannon. I could shoot spouts of water out of the pond, and I had done that step after step, giving the impression of a wet person running away from the pond in a hurry. My deception seemed to work, as the three mercenaries followed the steps. I was shocked at how fast they could run. It felt faster than what humans in my word could do. However, as a result, their racing steps were lost in the distance.
"Mmmm!" An agonized moan sounded on the other side of the pond.
I returned my consciousness there and immediately checked the girl again.
Over ten centimeters! She was having the baby now!