"But you just have to get away from the water..." Ricardo spoke, but before he could finish speaking, Dima interrupted him.

"Boy, the mermaids are 'tritoids', they are as intelligent as humans, but there is a subtle difference and that is that in two eras they dominated the ocean, in the third they supported the king by supporting his throne, in the era of the empty throne they practically expanded like plagues and in the current one, the age of the nameless king or the dark age, they are the one of the few forces that do not recognize the living god"

"Do you have a poor idea of how far we humans are from that?, I had to trade slaves with mermaids, believe me if they want you dead, you are dead and this language was a fine line that never in 4 eras after Poseidon crossed... like this it's rare to see some lunatic speaking the language"

"But nobody speaks it? I mean that with Taras we were trying to remember a story of a creature that spoke to them" Ricardo asked with some doubt, if the myth exists, then it was real.

"You have to be an idiot not to know which creature it is..." Dima said, looking at the two, almost incredulous that they can't guess the answer. "But you're right they are just rumors, I don't know anyone who has seen them, but the rumors are not few... they are probably true"

Taras wanted to speak, but it would be very humiliating to have to admit that he hadn't found out, so he let the young man next to him eat the bullet... But, Ricardo was playing the idiot like him.

"..." Dima looked at the two morons in front of him suddenly quiet, understanding the situation he decided to throw a help.

"If you are not a mermaid, and you speak the language of the mermaids, what are you?" he asked her, as if it were a riddle.

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'Oh, I remember the story now...' Taras thought, as he said, " 'Merman' ?"

"But because something so obvious is a rumor, it should almost certainly be a fact" Ricardo commented upon seeing the answer, a more complex answer was expected

"Yes... Only men use the ancient language, and to the second question, have you ever seen a 'Merman' ?" Dima asked, looking at his assistants, after all the final conclusion of the idea in her mind, it was quite hard for him to believe too.

“No” Ricardo answered without hesitation.

"No one saw them... Not even the mermaids I traded with... That's how rare they are" Dima said looking at the piece of paper in his hand.

"Not even the sirens? That's an exaggeration of the rumor..." Ricardo said.

Dima settled himself leaning against the wall, began to share the rumors that he knew:

"I told you to trade with mermaids, their society is quite tough, a single merman for millions of mermaids and the few that are born are forced to fight as youngsters with an adult already grown and full of relics, if they lose, they are thrown out"

"But why are there so few, there should be hundreds by the homeless sea?" Taras asked, looking to know more about the subject.

"Because they are useless... To the point that there are rumors that they cannot swim... Most die in the sea as food for the first creature that comes across... Imagine being a sea creature and seeing something fatter than a fish and slower than a turtle" Dima answered with a certain irony.

"But the mermaids love that uselessness, to the point that they built their entire civilization around a patriarch like Poseidon and thus dominated the seas, dethroning the rest of the creatures, just to be able to have a daughter with a useless 'Merman' who couldn't swim... "

"The real problem is that all the history of this world is full of deceit, and the winners tell what they were told and erase all past history... Poseidon died, and the truth was buried with his era"

"The only certain thing is that 'Merman' are rare, even for mermaids and if you know one who saw one, you have to throw caps into the ocean to calm her down and run away like crazy, that's my life experience, so there is no I doubt it's real..." Dima said, with some embarrassment on his face, it seems that it was not a good memory he had.

Ricardo listened patiently, and tried to fit those rumors with Lucas and for every rumor, the more it seemed to be the case that his idea was correct, and then he said: "Lucas was a merman, wasn't he?"