Gladiia hadn't experienced a fever for a long time.
Her head felt heavy, as if something was sucking the marrow from her brain.
'I must be sick.'
A strange voice, and an annoying one.
"How could this happen? I brush my teeth every day!"
Her consciousness gradually cleared, but she still couldn't open her eyes.
Gladiia recalled the events leading up to her unconsciousness. It seemed she had gone ashore to teach a surface dweller a lesson, at least to rough them up a bit, as the price for seducing one of her team members.
However, things had taken an unexpected turn.
She had lost to that surface dweller.
In the long history of battles in the deep sea, she had experienced more serious injuries than having a few ribs bitten off and her spleen crushed, her stomach torn apart, or even being swallowed whole, as long as her brain wasn't pierced or her heart shredded. She could still stand up and continue fighting.
However, her pride lay in her powerful regenerative abilities, which seemed to have failed her. The sporadic stabs of pain in her lower back reminded her that even now, she could only lie in bed like a patient.
She couldn't even open her eyes.
Her throat was dry. How long had it been since she came ashore?
Tiny salt crystals seeped out of her skin, and without looking, Gladiia knew she was dehydrated.
Splash!
Clean stream water poured over her, as if a dry field had finally received a gentle rain.
The surface dweller who had defeated her obviously knew the weakness of Abyssal Hunters. Had Laurentina told him about it? If so, why didn't he just throw her into the river? She would have recovered more quickly that way.
As if hearing her thoughts, Gladiia felt a hand on her body, unbuttoning her clothes.
Gladiia's body stiffened.
What did that surface dweller want to do?
He was undressing herself!?
To be honest, Gladiia was no longer young. She had spent more than a decade in battles, fighting for the city of Aegir, having been summoned as an Abyssal Hunter. She had already prepared to devote her entire life to Aegir, to fight as an Abyssal Hunter until the very end.
Because from the moment she became an Abyssal Hunter, she was no longer just an Aegir citizen.
As the captain of an Abyssal Hunter team, she didn't have time for romance and love affairs.
As she grew older, her happiest moments were when she saw new blood joining the ranks of hunters. And her saddest moments were when new Aegir citizens became Abyssal Hunters and entered her team.
So when she learned that Laurentina had fallen for a surface dweller, she paid special attention to her. And when she saw Laurentina leave the team without permission, she was angry and furious.
But at this moment, Gladiia wanted to tell Laurentina something.
'Laurentina, that person you're interested in is a beast. He doesn't even spare me!'
In truth, Gladiia would never have thought such a thing about anyone else. However, she had preconceived notions that Garde had ensnared Laurentina, and Gladiia believed Garde wasn't a good person.
All her clothes were removed, and her weakness left Gladiia with no resistance. She could only be lifted up by a pair of hands.
Wait, did that surface dweller's arms feel this delicate?
Gladiia heard a childish voice close to her ear.
"Gavial, look at her butt, it's so big!"
"Ha, who knows."
In Garde's room, Gavial unceremoniously tossed Gladiia into a bathtub used for bathing.
Usually, they bathed in the river, but during the winter, they still used wooden barrels to heat water.
The wooden barrel Garde used for bathing was quite large and could accommodate several of them.
Gavial's discontent was not because Garde had brought a foreign woman back with him. She wasn't the type to make a fuss without reason. With a single glance, she could tell that all the injuries on the foreign woman's body were caused by Garde, and Garde had his fair share of wounds as well.
The fact that Garde could leave injuries on him was evidence of the foreign woman's strength.
Just by looking at the scene of the incident, from the riverside to deep within the rainforest, there were collapsed trees and shattered rocks everywhere, a scene of chaos.
Gavial had always had great respect for beings stronger than herself.
Her reason for being unhappy was that Garde had left to search for creatures called "Seaborns" and didn't take her with him!
After tossing Gladiia into the water barrel, Gavial threw in some herbs approved by their Tiacauh witch doctor for treating external injuries. However, as soon as Gavial poured the herbs in, Gladiia opened her eyes.
"These things are useless to me."
The water in the barrel wasn't pure stream water; it seemed to contain salt, making it more like seawater. Thanks to this, Gladiia felt her lost strength slowly returning.
It seemed that when the surface dweller injured her, he had injected some kind of toxin or substance into her body.
Although she couldn't adapt to this toxin, she was gradually eliminating it from her system.
Even the water in the barrel began to warm up.
However, Gavial couldn't understand Gladiia's words at all, just as Gladiia couldn't understand Gavial's words. At first, Gavial tried to explain the herbs with hand gestures, but when she saw Gladiia frowning and shaking her head, Gavial grew impatient and simply poured all the herbs into the water.
Gladiia immediately tried to get up, but in her still weakened state, she was no match for Gavial. The current Gladiia was like a swordfish on a chopping board.
Just as she managed to stand up, Gavial, who was behind her, took a chopping board used for cutting vegetables and slammed it on Gladiia's head.
Gladiia instantly fainted.
Watching Gladiia, Gavial felt somewhat embarrassed.
"Garde told me that if she gets restless, just knock her out."
Saying this, she glanced at the water barrel.
It's really big!
Because her butt was so big, her thighs looked very full. Overall, she appeared very well-proportioned and slender.
'Could my butt grow that big when I become older?'
Gavial wondered enviously.
Meanwhile, Garde had already left Acahualla and arrived on the plains below the Acahualla Highland's escarpment, heading towards the end of the river.
It was said that the vast escarpment extended all the way from distant Iberia to Acahualla in Sargon, finally ending in the endless desert.
With him, there were not only Saria but also two researchers from Rhine Lab. He needed Rhine Lab's detection equipment to monitor the movements of the Seaborns.
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