Red helmet. White striped red breastplate. Red shin and arm guards. I looked amazing!

Yeah, looked amazing. Felt absolutely shit. Not only could I not move in these, I couldn’t even stand up straight. They were… heavy.

“Guess we’ll have to go lighter…” The vendor scratched his head. “I don’t have anything lighter though. Yo Hallbuck, do you have anything lighter?”

“Not really. How about you, Silverduck?”

“Nah. Nothing.”

Apparently, these were the lightest stuff they made. And they were still heavy for me underwater. Technically this place closely resembled the surface, so it probably wasn’t going to get any heavier or lighter above either.

“I’ll take the crotch guard,” I said. Just a thin plate that went over your underwear. It wasn’t that heavy, and it wasn’t that popular, since most fish didn’t have their things hanging on the outside. They made these things for export. Hermons had legs but even they didn’t have hanging bits, so who were the goblins actually exporting to?

Hmm…

The vendor nodded. “Excellent choice.”

The mermaid and the fishmen snickered by the sides. Fuck them.

Since armor and weapons were a bust, I figured it was time to check out the accessories. If I couldn’t even lift a simple accessory, I had to consider jumping off a cliff. I’d probably just float though.

Accessories came in various sizes and shapes. Bracelets, cubes, earrings, pendants, ceremonial knives, random branches, rings, necklaces and so on.

The vendor explained what these were and what you could use them for.

Most of these accessories were magical devices.

Some created waves, some expelled fire, some covered the ground with slime and so on. Their accuracy was pretty terrible, so not practical. The fire-expelling one almost burned my hand, and I didn’t even fire it; I was just holding it. The rest were pretty shit too.

“What about this?” I said, pointing at a pendant. It had a vibrant green gem in the middle and I really liked the silver.

“That one’s a dud. Can’t produce anything. Can be used as a catalyst though.”

“Why’s it a dud?”

“I was hoping it would expel a protective layer and can be used as a makeshift shield but even with that gemstone, it doesn’t work. I suppose I was being too ambitious.”

I took the pendant and poured a bit of mana into it. Of course, you didn’t need mana to use a magical device but a little bit allowed you to control the intensity of its functions to some degree.

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I felt nothing. Just as the vendor said, this was a dud. But I could feel a great deal of mana emanating from the gem. It was a pure gem. Crafted from crude stuff, to look pretty. “I’ll take it.”

“It’s yours then. Do you want anything else? This windy dagger is definitely one of my best works and-”

And as this point, he was really just trying to win me over.

“No, no, I’m good. I can create a bit of wind myself,” I said, laughing. Though now that I thought about it, maybe getting that slime spewing ring was going to come in handy one of these days…

Oh well. This body’s too young for that shit anyway.

Sighing, I went to various other stalls. Their wares were very similar but I did notice something nice toward the end.

Red and black with a glowing white string.

A magical bow!

Made from the elastic tail and the shrimp’s whiskers, it was an amazing weapon! You didn’t even need arrows. You just pulled it and it created arrows based on your imagination!

The only reason it was still here, was because goblins didn’t care about bows.

I didn’t care if I looked greedy or some shit, but I immediately snatched up the bow without hesitation.

It even shrank, and the string disappeared when I grabbed it; barely the size of a typical dagger, you could probably use it as a makeshift dagger. I willed it to open, and it opened!

“THIS IS AMAZING!”

“Stop yelling,” Roksha pinched my cheek. “And that’s enough shopping. Let’s go.”

“Okay…”

***

The real party began in the evening when the whole village started singing and dancing. As I thought, they sucked. I sucked too, but when everyone danced around you, you sort of felt the beat in your bones too… at least I did.

The mermaid, the fishman, I even saw the frigging elder coming to dance with us.

I was really worried these last few days. Hermons weren’t going to come here, but what if they did? What if they came here and captured us again? Escaping a second time was probably going to be impossible. Luckily, they never showed up. But we were still going to spend another day here. And assuming they were in the area, they could just ambush us the moment we left this village.

So yeah, couldn’t rest easy.

“Dance, dance!” Daine said, swinging me around.

She wasn’t spinning me, so that was good.

Pretty lights, pretty sight; rather pretty evening.

But as with everything in life, the evening passed and I was back in my bed with the mermaid.

The fishman slept soundly on the floor. Too soundly, occasionally snoring.

“I really thought my life was over when you caught me,” Roksha said.

“It probably was. How the hell did you end up getting caught like that anyway?”

“I got separated from my mother. A Hermon scout saw me. I was trying to get away from him when I got caught in your trap.”

“So, technically, The Hermon came because of you, and that’s how we ended up getting captured.”

In the end, it was all my fault. Well, you do dig your graves some times.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said.

“Why?”

“If it weren’t for you, I’d be just a trapped fish.”

Well, technically, she was still sort of a trapped fish.

“You’re welcome.”

“What are you going to do? You said you were going to return me home. And then search for your parents. But… but the forbidden continent, is forbidden for a reason.”

“And that is?”

“It was destroyed by the Sea lord long ago. Now most of it is underwater. There is hardly any place for land dwellers to survive. But since they’re your parents, maybe they possess the same ability to breathe underwater?”

“They don’t. Or shouldn’t.”

“I see… my condolences.”

“They’re not dead. WE don’t know if they’re dead or alive. I’m betting that they’re alive.”

When the first mailman failed to reach Den, it was already decided they were dead. That was the norm in this world. However, there was always a chance they were alive. I was betting on that chance without thinking about the otherwise. The obvious.

And even now, even now I didn’t want to think about the obvious. I didn’t want to…

“Good night,” she said, turning away.

“Night.”

They’re not dead… they’re not.