Rok had been swimming at a brisk pace, his beast form only serving to carry him faster. His chest had settled down majorly, the pain transitioning to only a dull soreness. He couldn’t say the same for his arms, though. Having the bones fracture, even if it was only a hairline crack, he needed to see the healer in town if he wanted to get that settled quicker than his body could heal. That went doubly so for the hand he’d tried to catch that limb with, it was sprained for sure, and he was sure at least some of the bones in it were broken. Unfortunately, his left ear was in a worse state. Besides the incessant ringing that refused to go away, it had been deafened. And all of this only added to his bruised ego, he hadn’t been in any mortal danger, but he was played for a fool. Three kobolds, two had escaped; a wyvern undergoing evolution, it had escaped; he had been accosted by a half dozen barracudas and had only a single lucky kill to show; a shrimp had made him half deaf; and worst of all, a starfish had broken his arms and a hand, as well as flung him back like a doll.
He was no stranger to dungeons, nor to the oceans, but he had never expected that putting them together could result in such a rough time, and he paid for that. He may not have any overt scars, but he still appeared more sluggish than before, tired by the rollercoaster of a day he’d had; when he retired he certainly wasn’t expecting this treatment.
After swimming for what felt like entirely too long, the little town was in sight. He was still at the surface, twenty-two meters above the Reefbed where the town sat, but the large size of his beast form still cut an impressive enough silhouette. So much so, apparently, that the children swimming around and playing bolted off to their parents in fear, who in turn pointed and gawked at the apparent monster, retreating back slowly. Someone had apparently even contacted those Atlanteans, he saw four distinct figures rushing out of the village in a loose formation. The merman and maid took the positions of vanguards, the boy, Mel took the front while Jacky was stationed above the other two, making sure that there weren’t any attacks from above. The lamia, Delia, was to the side and slightly beneath the siren, Kelly. From what he could tell they were both some form of mage, one might have been attack and the other support. If that was the case than he’d wager Delia to be the offensive one, based on how all three seemed to be protecting Kelly.
He proceeded forward, once he was roughly five hundred meters from the town he shifted back and grabbed some of the tattered remains of his clothes to cover up. Had to preserve modesty, after all. As he did that, he felt another tinge of pain run through his arms, and with one hand disabled, it made tying a makeshift loincloth that much more difficult.
The group had arrived by this point, they had been readying their weapons and magic when the monster they were prepared to face started shifting, distorting into a twisted mockery of a bipedal, and then finally, into Rok. They were shocked, they had just spoken to him yesterday and now he came swimming back to town in a beast shape, and one very well practiced at that. It takes a huge effort for beast-kin to have their beast forms properly atavistic, the vast majority are varying degrees of humanoid. Secondly, the noticed him fumbling at his clothes, pinching a long streak of watertight fabric to his leg with an arm that appeared to be injured and wrapping it around his waist. The group had caught sight of it all, and while Mel had a mild trace of discontent playing on his face, the girls wore expressions of embarrassment and surprise, though Jacky and Delia had a hint of interest before they covered it up.
The first to speak was Kelly, coughing roughly and lowering her voice, she asked “Rok? Are- are you okay?” She was met with no response, his head facing down as he fumbled at trying to tie a knot with his non-dominant hand. He had a grimace on his face, appearing to be in mild discomfort as he worked, and he winced slightly when he moved to shift his right arm. This made the group worried, they were all aware of his rankings both in and out of the water. Kelly asked again, this time using a bit of her Charm.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Rok? What happened, do you need any help?”
He looked up this time, apparently finally hearing her voice. “Oh, Kelly, sorry about that.” He was speaking rather loudly, not quite yelling but putting more force in his voice than he reasonably needed. He also gave no answer, leaving her guessing as to whether he had brushed off her offer, or if he legitimately hadn’t heard. She moved closer, the group following behind her as Mel asked him.
“Rok, what’s going on, you look hurt?”
They were closer this time, about five meters distance, and he seemed to have truly heard, finally.
“Oh, sorry about that, I’m trying to cover up so I can go see the healer. I guess I’m just getting old, my hearing’s going bad and I broke my arms in a little spat.” He said a small grin on his lips.
Jacky shook her head, a stern face as she demanded “Seriously, what happened. You’re strong enough that something major would need to happen to even hurt you. But you broke your arms, and your hearing?” She was genuinely concerned. If he had run into something to put him in this state, was it still out there? What would it do to them?
He laughed, shaking his head. “I honestly doubt you’d believe me if I told you.”
She pouted then looked at him like a scolding mother “Try me.”
“It was nothing much, A shrimp made me deaf in one ear, and a starfish broke my arms. Happy?” He said, no sign that he was being anything but honest.
Before she could answer, Delia started laughing, asking him after a moment of mirth “And what did you do to them?”
“The shrimp got away, so did the starfish but I got two of its arms.” He answered with a hint of pride in his voice, as though taking two arms from a starfish was an achievement. This sent Delia into another giggle fit, and even Kelly shared in the moment.
“The great Rok, A+ Adventurer-slash-Atlantean, bane of Rogue Dungeons, vanguard of a Wild Trench, and weak to invertebrates.” Muttered Mel, reigniting Delia’s fit of laughter.
Rok shot them all a look, before turning back to fixing his impromptu loincloth. Kelly went up to him and managed to wipe the smirk from her face as she asked if he really needed help. He said yes, his arms were truly fractured, and he had his suspicions confirmed about Kelly’s profession. She cast a quick healing spell on his arms, having to concentrate more closely on the bones of his hands. By this point Rok had allowed himself to sink to the Reef-floor, using a passive spell to enable him to, essentially, breathe underwater. The main downside to this spell is its inefficiency. Most of the amphibious beast-kin races learned this just by existing, but it was not nearly as effective as gills. As such, it made it very good for everyday life in the water, and almost useless for combat, where alternatives methods of respiration were a necessity. There was a similar racial spell for the aquatic races, though that sees much less use, even in daily life.
As Kelly healed Rok, the rest of the group tried prodding him for details, obviously not believing him, but he said nothing. The group had little desire to search for the answer themselves, it would do no good to encounter something like that, seeing as they, as a group even, were merely recently promoted to B, and individually they were even weaker. It made no sense to allow curiosity to cost them their lives.
Rok flexed his arms, clenching his fists and confirming the job well done. Kelly swam upwards a little, about to start focusing on healing his ear when she was stopped.
“It’s fine, you can’t do anything about that one. I’ll need a specialist if I ever want that fixed.”
Kelly frowned, but said nothing. Not that he was wrong, in the sirens mind he was just too blunt about it.
Of course, the man in question knew not of the sirens musings, thinking her frown to be caused by being denied the option to help. The four continued their line of questions, receiving answers that were vague at best, or being met with silence altogether. They eventually went their separate ways, the group telling him that he could ask them should he ever require their help, more as a formality of course, but the offer stood. He went to the inn he had been staying in, the citizens appearing somehow even more wary of him after finding out that the eight meter behemoth they had seen earlier was, in fact, the man before them. He’d also found out that this was the same inn that Delia stayed at, when she had given him a wink and a smirk before retreating into her room on the same level.
He thought nothing of it, too busy figuring out what in the world he was supposed to do with the information he now possessed. In the end he decided to go to bed and deal with it later.