WIEDERGEBURT Act III: Chapter 63

The Leviathan roamed far out at sea, further than I’d ever been. King Neptune had said it had taken Atlantia, home of the Merfolks, as its home now, and it was constantly seen swimming around the supposed underwater city.

I had gone out to sea alone. Walking along the water’s surface, I stretched my Spiritual Perception out as far as I could. Much of the world around me appeared gray, but there were several blue flames swimming through the ocean nearby—B-rank Selkath, a type of fish Demon Beast that swam in schools. They seemed to be avoiding me, so perhaps this group was smarter than the average Demon Beast, or maybe they hadn’t noticed me yet. Either way, I ignored them.

“According to King Neptune, Atlantia should be about here…”

I looked down but could not see anything. The water here was too deep. I didn’t know how deep, but I suspected it might be even deeper than I assumed.

Taking several slow, deep breaths to calm myself, I began manipulating the water beneath my feet. I imagined a sphere encasing my body, protecting me from the water. Soon, the ocean water rose up around my body, forming a spherical barrier with me inside. Once that was done, I slowly sank into the ocean and began descending.

The murky water was indeed hard to see through. I squinted my eyes and tried peering into the water, but I could only see maybe ten or fifteen meters in any direction. Grimacing, I continued sinking deeper.

In an enclosed sphere like this, it was impossible to get air the normal way. Water contained oxygen. Through my studies of aquatic Demon Beasts, I had learned that their bodies could intake oxygen through their gills. I did not have any gills, so I needed to get creative.

I continuously pulled oxygen from the water through the bubble. I was careful to only pull in oxygen and nothing else. This allowed me to breathe despite being stuck inside of an enclosed space in the middle of the sea.

Several creatures swam past me as I descended, from simple schools of normal fish to the occasional Demon Beast. A few, like the Greater White Shark, tried to attack me, but I crushed their bodies by compressing the water they were swimming in. Their dark blood and organs oozed into the ocean. I ignored the sight as I kept descending and descending, until I had reached the sea bed.

I looked around after setting down on the sea floor. The bottom of the sea was so different from what I thought it would look like. Most of the floor was simply a flat plain of sand, but I could see what looked like hills and cliffs in the distance.

I began walking in the direction King Neptune told me Atlantia was located in, readjusting myself since it looked like I was a little off course. As I did, several schools of fish swam past me, their bodies glinting in the oddly reflected light down here. It wasn’t long before I was walking through a series of cliffs, which I realized was actually a coral reef. All kinds of interesting creatures were swimming through it. Many of them avoided me, but there was one eel that poked its large head out to stare at me. I was pretty sure it was a Demon Beast, but it didn’t attack, so I moved on.

There was more than just coral reefs down here. On my way to Atlantia, I found several sunken ships. They were a lot bigger than the ones I had seen moored on beaches and shores, which tended to er on the small side. These were easily capable of fitting upwards of a hundred or more people. They were made from wood and had a large mast. I wasn’t sure how old these ships were, but considering what happened to humans who’d been living out this way, I was certain they were from before the catastrophe.

Kari would have loved to explore them.

After bypassing numerous sunken ships, I finally came upon a massive gate. I blinked several times and rubbed my eyes. However, even after staring at it a second time, the gate did not go away. It was indeed a giant gate about the same size as the one surrounding Nevaria. The majestic entryway was adorned with half-destroyed statues of Merfolk standing vigilant guard on either side of the half-demolished gate entrance.

It struck me as odd that a place like Atlantia would have a gate. Merfolk could swim, right? If they could swim, then they could just as easily enter Atlantia by swimming into it from above. Was there any point in having a gate?

Shaking my head, I dispelled the thought as irrelevant and moved past the gate, walking into the city itself.

The buildings in Atlantia were all made from coral. Some were large, towering so high above me that I couldn’t see the tops, while others were smaller and more squat. I found one squarish building that had numerous motifs and adornments on it, making it look almost like a temple. Several tilted archways marked the entrance. There was another building surrounded by columns. One of the three-story buildings I came across even featured windows, though they didn’t look to be made of glass. I tapped against the sturdy frame and watched the window wobble. What kind of material was this?

I kept traveling through the city, searching for this Leviathan. It shouldn’t be that hard to spot. King Neptune had said Leviathan was bigger than the largest building in Atlantia. Its body was long and so thick it could swallow ten buildings such as these whole. Surely such a massive Demon Beast would be easy to spot.

As I walked alongside the ruined remains of a massive gray wall, I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of this Demon Beast. However, no matter how many times I turned my head or how hard I squinted my eyes, I couldn’t see anything. As I reached the end of the wall, I sighed and wondered if maybe this Leviathan had moved on. Could it have already left Atlantia?

The thought depressed me.

I came close to the wall so a small section of it was inside of my bubble. I placed a hand against the wall and leaned into it. This wall felt a bit odd. It was hard, but it had some yield to it. It also felt more like scales or leather than it did coral. As I ran my hand over the wall, I looked up to see how large it was.

Then I froze.

On the wall, just a few meters above my head, a glowing red eye was staring down at me.

I leapt back as my sense of danger screamed at me. In that exact moment, something pierced the ground where I’d been standing. It looked like some kind of feeler or tentacle. It was long, about the same thickness as my body, and seemed to be coming from somewhere on top of what I now realized wasn’t a wall at all.

The “wall” suddenly moved, the Demon Beast before me raising its head and turning to face me. Several rows of sharp teeth greeted my sight. Each tooth was nearly two times larger than I was tall. This muzzle was almost all mouth and fangs, shaped like a triangle, and had a pair of glowing red eyes.

Past the mouth were several sharp protrusions that looked like spikes jutting from its body. They were on either side of this Demon Beast. There was also a row of incredible sharp fins on top, moving back along its neck before disappearing between a set of what I could only describe as blubbery wings. I could see nothing past that. This creature’s body was so massive that the rest of it disappeared into the murky depths of the water. However, I didn’t really need to see the rest of it to know what this creature was.

It looked like I had found Leviathan.

***

Our first half a month in the Demon Beast Mountain Range was dedicated to gathering alchemy ingredients. I planned on refining the Elemental Enlightenment Pill for Lin, Fay, and three more for my newly aqcuired darkness, earth, and wind affinities.

There were a total of twenty-two ingredients required to refine this particular pill. Most of the ingredients were not that rare. They were classified between grades 3-6. However, six of the ingredients needed were classified as grade-8 and one of them was a grade-9—the Life Elixir.

We spent that first half a month gathering all of the ingredients of grade-3 through grade-6. Thanks to the storage rings that Kari had created, gathering and carrying ingredients was a simple matter. Not only could the storage rings contain nearly one ton’s worth of supplies, but anything placed inside of the ring would remain frozen in time until pulled back out.

Kari called it stasis.

Gathering the ingredients we needed involved a lot of traveling. We traversed forests, plains, deserts, and even scaled several mountains and searched through numerous caves. Despite how far we traveled, none of the girls complained. In fact, I’d never seen them smile so much.

Out of all the girls, none of them smiled more than Kari.

The young woman was really in her element out here. People in Nevaria often spoke of Kari’s elegant demeanor and graceful poise, of her refined manner of speaking and her reserved expressions. None of them had ever seen her like this, covered in dirt, hiking over mountains and killing Demon Beasts. She trekked through the wilderness with a wide smile on her face. This was the side of Kari that only a few people aside from us had ever seen.

That was not to say the other girls did not appear to be enjoying themselves. While Lin complained several times about the lack of a warm bath, she still enthusiastically chatted with her “Big Sister” and Fay, and though she was still reluctant to engage Siv in conversation, at least she did not shun the dragon girl.

Fay and Siv seemed to have built a rapport with each other similar to the one Kari and Lin had. When Siv wasn’t glued to my side, she was attached to Fay’s hip.

Siv didn’t speak much. The more she learned about the human language, the less she seemed to say. I think the only reason she said so much during the first half a month with us was because she was still learning, but once she was able to form whole sentences without stuttering, pausing, or retracting her statements, she began speaking less. These days, it wasn’t unusual for her to reply with only a few words.

None of us took offense to this, as we just realized Siv was a naturally quiet person. She seemed to prefer observing her surroundings and speaking only when necessary. Of course, she would still talk if someone spoke to her. She merely preferred being quiet.

At present, we were trekking through a jungle. It was the same jungle we had trekked through during our expedition with Catalyna almost half a year ago. The humid tropical air caused sweat to break out on our skin. All of the trees were twisted and gnarled. They bent to create odd shapes that couldn’t be found in a normal forest. Most of them were covered in vines that hung from the branches. Meanwhile, the ground beneath our feet was soggy, sucking in our boots and forcing us to expend more effort when pulling them out.

Thanks to our strength, we barely noticed the way our boots were sucked into the ground, though Siv did almost fall on her face when her left foot almost slipped out of her sandal. Unlike the rest of us (minus Lin who had no feet), she could not wear boots because of her clawed toenails.

“I’d forgotten about how muggy this jungle could be,” I muttered.

“Yeah, it can be pretty rough,” Kari agreed. “But that’s just a part of the journey, you know? What’s an adventure without a little discomfort?”

“I think the only one who enjoys being sweaty like this is you,” Fay said.

“Aww. Don’t be like that, Fay! Isn’t this great?”

“Well… I suppose…” Fay still didn’t look convinced.

“This princess actually loves this kind of weather. It’s nice and humid. Arid climates dry out her scales and suck all the warmth from her body.”

“Well, I suppose a lamia would prefer weather that helps you retain moisture and body heat...” Fay relented after Lin added her two valis.

Our formation through this jungle was rather simple. Kari was in the lead, hacking away at the vines and any Demon Beasts with her ranseur. Lin and Fay were immediately behind her, while Siv was behind them, and I was taking up the rear.

We had decided on this formation because I felt it would be a good experience if the girls did most of the work without my intervention. Sure, they could have relied on me, but none of them wanted to. They wanted to do this themselves, which I was all for.

“It’s getting pretty late,” I said at last as I looked at the sky. Even though the canopy made it hard to see, the darkening colors peeking in from above told me the sun was setting. “We should set up camp.”

“In that case, let’s find a nice, flat spot of land to set up our camp,” Kari said.

Finding a spot of flatland in a jungle like this was harder than it looked, but we did eventually find something before the sun set—well, we technically made it flat. I used the water element to suck all the moisture out of the ground, then Lin used the earth element to flatten the area so we could set up our tent.

Our group split up duties. I was charged with creating the Demon Beast repellent. This involved setting up several urns around the camp and filling them with the Demon Beast repelling liquid. I could have made it into a pill like the people from the Endless Desert, but while pills lasted longer, they weren’t as effective. While I created what was basically a barrier, Kari and Lin went out to hunt for food and Fay and Siv pitched the tent.

By the time I had finished setting up the repellent, Kari and Lin returned with a veritable feast. They had found several different kinds of fruits, including bananas and taro roots. However, they had also caught numerous large fish and… a crocodile. It wasn’t a Demon Beast. Just a regular crocodile. However, not only was it about two meters long, but Kari was grinning as she dragged the thing by its tail.

“Look at what we caught!” she exclaimed with excitement as she lifted the giant creature by its tail. Of course, because it was longer than she was tall, half its body was still being dragged across the forest floor. “Do you think we can cut this up and turn it into a stew?”

“Crocodile, huh?” I blew out a deep breath. “Well, crocodile meat is edible, so I think we can, but it’s going to take a lot of work to process it into bite-sized pieces.”

“You can leave that to me.” Kari dropped the crocodile on the ground and summoned her ranseur from within her storage scroll. “I’ll have this thing chopped up in no time flat!”

“Don’t use your ranseur to cut up a crocodile,” I said with a sigh as I summoned a machete made from the metallic hide of the A-rank Demon Beast, Giant Rock Golem. “Use this instead. Just channel your Spiritual Power through it to increase its cutting power. Your light element is uniquely suited to cutting things up, so it should work well here.”

“Oh, thank you.” Kari took the machete from me, then turned to Lin. “Why don’t you get started on creating the stew while I cut this up?”

“You can leave making the stew to this princess.” Lin thumped her chest. At the same time, her tail began thumping against the ground as she salivated at the crocodile. I almost sighed when I saw her drooling.

As Kari took the machete to the crocodile and began cutting it up, Lin summoned a pot from our storage ring containing all the cookware. Each of us had several storage rings. The ones we were wearing only contained personal items like clothes and our weapons, but we had other rings that contained herbs and spices, our camping equipment, and our cookware.

Lin created a firepit by manipulating the earth. Ever since she learned how to separate the earth element from the darkness element, she’d been using every chance she could to show off. After throwing in several logs, branches, and leaves, she asked Fay to start a fire for her. Since Fay and Siv were done pitching the tent, they came over and helped her out.

With everyone working together, it did not take long before we had created a fairly scrumptious meal. We ended up cooking a spicy crocodile stew by using taro root as the base for the stew. We mashed it up to create a paste, then added it into boiling water. While Lin was adding various vegetables and spicy curry cubes into the stew, Kari browned the crocodile until it was nice and crispy, adding spices and herbs like cayenne pepper, thyme, rosemary, sale, and pepper to compliment the spicy flavor of the curry. After we finished cooking, we placed the crocodile onto our plates, then added the stew over it.

While the final creation was not something that I thought would be appetizing, I had to admit that it was actually very delicious. The browned crocodile was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. It tasted a lot like chicken. There was actually a dish in one of the coastal cities of the Northern Plains that specialized in creating fried dishes—particularly squid and octopus. What they did was fry the dish in oil, then season it with wheat flour or potato starch. This tasted slightly similar but without the fried texture.

I cleaned out the pots and pans that Kari and Lin had used to cook. I used water from a stream that I purified with my water affinity, then stored everything back inside of the storage ring. Once I’d finished cleaning, I came back to the camp and found Kari, Lin, Fay, and Siv sitting around the fire and talking amongst each other. They waved me over when they saw me.

“We were discussing what our plans should be next,” Kari said as I sat down between her and Fay.

“I think we have most of the common ingredients needed to create the Elemental Enlightenment Pill,” Fay added. “The next ingredients we’ll need to acquire will be much more difficult to find.”

“This princess thinks we should travel to the mountain ruins before searching for more ingredients,” Lin said. “We’re already pretty close, so we might as well visit them before doing anything else.”

As the girls stated their opinions, I took a map out of my storage ring and set it on the ground before us. Spreading out the map, I summoned a quill and a jar of ink, dipped the quill into the ink, and then circled several spots on the map. Kari, Lin, Fay, and Siv watched me as I worked.

“These spots here are the location to several of the ingredients we need to create the Elemental Enlightenment Pills,” I stated. “As you can see, the locations are all pretty far apart from each other. It’s going to take at least two or three months of traveling to acquire everything. These locations also only show us where the non-Demon Beast ingredients are. The liv petals are located in this valley over here. Meanwhile, the aqua vitae is located inside of an underground spring on the opposite side of the Demon Beast Mountain Range. We can find the spriggan sap along the way. However, the asclepius root can only be found at the peak of the Drake Mountains. Likewise, the life elixir is located closer to the Morkdypt Ravine, inside of an underground cavern that belongs to an S-rank Demon Beast—Behir. It’s a serpentine Demon Beast with hard scales and twelve legs. It has an earth affinity.”

As I spoke, I pointed out each circle I had marked on the map, indicating which circled location had which ingredient.

“An S-rank Demon Beast will be hard for us to beat,” Fay said with a worried look.

“I’ll fight the Behir eventually, but we don’t need to bother with it right now,” I said. “I was just showing you all where the ingredients we still need are located, so you’ll know this is going to take a long time. And since these are all so far apart from each other, I think we should travel to the mountain ruins like Lin suggested.”

“All right!” Kari clenched her right hand into a fist as her eyes began glowing. It wasn’t an actual glow, but more of a metaphysical glow. That said, in the light of the fire, it really did appear like there was a flame blazing behind her irises. “Since that’s settled, we’ll get some sleep, then set off for the mountain ruins tomorrow!”

“It will take a few days to reach the mountain ruins,” Fay said. “When me, Kari, and Lin traveled there during the time you and Lord Herleif went to the Morkdypt Ravine, it took about six or seven days to reach. I imagine it will take the same amount of time.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “We’re not in a rush to reach it like we were last time.”

By last time, I was referring to when we went on that expedition with Catalyna. Back then, a Sekbeist named Skygge had used a woman named Dyr in a ritual that caused all of the Demon Beasts within a several kilometer radius to attack us. Fay and me had taken the roll of decoy so the others could escape. That was also when we ran afoul the Giant Rock Golem.

“It’s still a bit too early to sleep,” Kari exclaimed as she summoned a board and several marble pieces. “Who is up for a game of Hnefatafl?”

“Count this princess out.” Lin crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “This princess is never playing that game again.”

Lin was probably remembering the time at Whiterun Hot Springs Resort when she played with me for several rounds of Hnefatafl and lost each time. Among my fiances, Lin was easily the most competitive, but she was also the one who hated losing the most. She probably didn’t enjoy the idea of constantly losing to me and the others.

Kari and Fay ended up playing several rounds of Hnefatafl, and Fay also taught Siv how to play, though she wasn’t very good since she was just learning it. However, she did seem to improve by the end, to the point where it took Kari several dozen turns to defeat her. Lin’s cheeks swelled when she saw how much the dragon girl improved as the game continued.

The night wore on, and it was eventually time for us to turn in. I snuffed out the fire. It would normally be kept going so someone could keep warm while they remained on watch, but we were using Demon Beast Repellent to keep anything that could kill us at bay. Thanks to that, we didn’t actually need someone to stay on watch.

All of us entered the large tent, easily big enough to fit a dozen people—or five people and a seven meter long lamia—and crawled underneath the covers of our futon.

As always, I found myself on the bottom. Kari took my right, hugging my arm between her breasts as she shared my pillow. Fay was on my left. She was a bit more reserved than the snuggly blonde. However, as the night wore on, she scooted closer and closer, until she could hook her legs around mine. Lin slept spooning Kari, her tail coiled around the rest of us, while Siv did the same to Fay. When I looked over in her direction, I saw her wings forming a tent of their own with the covers.

I shook my head.

Closing my eyes, I breathed out, and slowly fell asleep.