Chapter 318: A Promise — A Friendly Interlude Between Humans and Non-Humans
Now that she had confirmed the merman was the great whale, everything became much simpler.
The great whale had never intended to harm Everly. Even if it had transformed into a merman, that much hadn’t changed. There was no need for her to stay on guard as though she were watching a thief. She could finally relax a little.
“How did you end up like this? Was it because you digested Gary?” she asked, leaning closer to the merman with undisguised curiosity.
Based on her previous interactions with the great whale, she knew that although it couldn’t speak, it understood surprisingly complex sentences. It was clearly highly intelligent, so Everly saw no reason not to ask the questions she wanted answered directly.
The merman buried his face halfway in the seawater, gazing up at her for a moment before nodding… then shaking his head.
“Hm? What does that mean? You nodded and shook your head… Does that mean Gary was part of the reason, but there were other factors too?”
The merman obediently nodded.
“Was it the Panacea?”
He nodded again.
“Then… is this change a good thing for you or a bad thing? Nod if it’s good. Shake your head if it’s bad.”
He nodded.
Everly let out a quiet sigh of relief.
There was no rule saying a human form was inherently superior to an animal’s—especially not in the case of a half-human, half-fish being like a merman. If what she had done hadn’t actually helped the great whale, but had instead turned it from a powerful, mighty whale into a fragile little merman, she would have felt terribly guilty.
After thinking it over, she asked another question.
“Can you still change back into your original form?”
She hadn’t really expected an affirmative answer. After all, the great whale had literally melted into pools of oil right before her eyes. According to the law of conservation of matter, it made no sense that a merman hatched from an egg could somehow regain the whale’s original size.
Yet when faced with this new question, the merman’s answer was another decisive nod.
“Oh, you can?” Everly exclaimed in surprise, unconsciously leaning closer.
Perhaps startled by how close she had come, the merman’s eyes quivered, and his pupils suddenly dilated.
He stared at her blankly for two full seconds, his lips moving as though he wanted to say something.
Just when Everly thought he was about to speak, he abruptly leaned backward in a panic. His whale tail broke the surface of the water and—
Smack!
—with one flick, splashed a familiar sheet of water straight into her face.
“…”
What a hypocrite!
He’d had no problem suddenly getting close enough to poke around inside her mouth, feeling her tongue and teeth. But the moment she leaned in to ask a question, he panicked? Unlike him, she hadn’t even touched him once!
Caught completely off guard, Everly took a mouthful of seawater.
“Ptoo! Ptoo!”
She spat it out with an aggrieved expression.
Splash!
About two meters away, water sprayed into the air as the diving merman surfaced again.
Just like before, he kept most of his body submerged beneath the sea, exposing only his eyes above the surface. He looked like some cautious little animal, quietly observing Everly from a safe distance.
Noticing his watchful gaze, Everly softened her expression and gave him a reassuring smile.
The merman’s eyes flickered.
He slowly lifted his face higher out of the water, revealing his pointed chin. Then, copying Everly once again, he curled the corners of his lips into a shy, somewhat awkward smile.
“I… I can… Everly…”
he stammered, still unaccustomed to speaking.
As soon as the words left his mouth, he slipped beneath the surface again.
In the blink of an eye, he rose once more.
But this time, the merman was gone.
Floating before Everly was the familiar black-and-white great whale.
So he really could transform back into a whale!
Delighted, Everly quickly swam over and affectionately rubbed the great whale’s head and one of its flippers.
As expected, Everly still preferred the great whale’s whale form.
For one thing, it could serve as transportation, carrying her effortlessly across the sea. It was incredibly practical, and its appearance was adorable to boot. The way it nudged her palm with its snout while making soft, contented little noises was irresistibly endearing.
The merman form, on the other hand, did make communication possible—but his vocabulary was still so limited that talking with him wasn’t much easier than it had been when he was a whale. Besides, now that he looked human, Everly couldn’t exactly bring herself to use him as a mount anymore.
The image of riding on the back of a naked man while shouting, “Giddy up, Whaley, let’s go!” felt… incredibly weird.
It sounded less like an adventure and more like the opening scene of some adults-only novel…
After petting him for a while, Everly asked whether he could stay in his whale form and carry her back to shore.
The great whale readily agreed, giving an enthusiastic chorus of “Mm-hmm! Ahh!” sounds.
So, one minute later, the tent*cle seatbelt was once again securely fastened around Everly’s waist, holding her atop the whale’s soft, springy back as they rode the waves toward the distant coastline.
…
Everly soon discovered that the great whale’s newfound ability to transform wasn’t without its advantages.
Previously, before they even reached shore, the whale would have had to stop and let her dismount. Its body was simply too massive—if it swam too close to land, it risked running aground.
Now, however, the great whale carried Everly all the way into the shallow coastal waters without slowing down.
Thanks to the tropical storm, wind and rain lashed the sea relentlessly. Not a single fishing boat or tourist was in sight, making things much more convenient for the unlikely pair.
Once they reached the shallows, though, the whale’s enormous body became increasingly difficult to maneuver.
The great whale let out a soft, “Ahh… ahh…”
The tent*cle wrapped around Everly’s waist moved gently, lifting her off its back and lowering her into the water.
Standing in the sea, Everly peered through the curtain of rain.
In the distance, she could already make out her villa.
She had been about to bid the great whale goodbye, telling him that this was far enough. The remaining distance to shore was short enough for her to swim on her own.
Unexpectedly, in the brief instant she looked away, the great whale beside her began shrinking like a deflating balloon. Its skin caved inward at astonishing speed, and within moments its enormous body had contracted to roughly the size of an adult human.
Then—
Riiip!
Several pink tent*cles with razor-sharp tips tore through the shrunken outer skin from the inside.
The tent*cles quickly withdrew. In their place, a pair of hands almost indistinguishable from a human’s reached out through the opening. Next came the merman’s arms, shoulders, head, waist, and tail…
Once most of his glassy, translucent fish tail had slipped free of the split skin, he tilted lazily to one side and gave it an easy flick.
Splash!
As the tail swished, the outer layer of whale skin peeled inside out like a duvet cover being turned the right way.
The inverted “whale skin” had originally retained its black-and-white coloring, but the moment it came into contact with the seawater and air, the color visibly faded. Its shape and size shifted as well.
By the time the waves settled once more, the inside-out whale skin had transformed into two ribbon-like streamers growing from the tip of his tail. They swayed gracefully with every movement, scattering dazzling, diamond-like flashes through the water.
“Everly… come…”
The merman swam over to her, lowered himself in the water, and presented the strong, supple curve of his lower back.
“N-No, it’s okay. You don’t have to go through all that trouble. I can make it back by myself.”
Everly tried to decline, but the merman was rather single-minded.
When she still didn’t move, several narrow slits suddenly opened along the side of his tail. Familiar pink tent*cles slipped out of the openings and, with no regard for her protests, wrapped themselves around her waist before lifting her onto the small of his back.
“Go… to… shore…”
Once Everly was settled, the merman turned his head in the water. The corners of his lips curled upward, and his slightly drooping eyes sparkled as he solemnly announced,
“Go… to… shore.”
As he spoke, something hidden beneath his black-and-white hair twitched repeatedly, flicking droplets of water all over Everly’s face.
Curious, Everly squinted for a closer look and realized it was his ears.
Unlike human ears, they resembled delicate folding fans, made up of translucent cartilage-like supports stretched with thin membranes. Hidden beneath his thick hair, they were easy to miss.
Perhaps because he was in such a good mood, the pair of ears kept twitching up and down unconsciously. The water splashing onto Everly’s face had come from those fluttering ears.
Was he really that happy about carrying her to shore…?
Or was the great whale simply curious about what life on land was like?
That seemed far more likely.
Everly had once watched documentaries that described how incredibly curious orcas were. They would often approach surfers and boats on their own initiative, observing them from up close. Some even copied each other’s playful behavior. In one famous orca pod, a whale once balanced a dead salmon on top of its blowhole as a game. The other whales thought it looked amusing and began imitating it, turning “salmon hats” into a pod-wide fashion trend for a time.
Compared to the unchanging ocean, land was a much more interesting place.
Thinking about it that way, Everly found she couldn’t bring herself to refuse him anymore.
If he wanted to come, then let him.
Besides, the shoreline was currently overrun with piranhas. No one was foolish enough to venture outside, so nobody would witness the bizarre sight of her riding on a merman’s back.
Come to think of it…
She had promised the great whale she’d treat him to a filet mignon steak. But with the villa surrounded by piranhas, how was she supposed to make good on that promise?
Lost in those wandering thoughts, Everly hardly noticed that the merman had already begun propelling them forward.
With a powerful sweep of his whale-like tail, he carried her swiftly through the sea toward the shore.
He swam far faster than Everly ever could. After all, his tail was the real thing, while hers was merely an imitation fashioned from seawater. There was no comparison.
As for the ride itself, though…
The great whale was definitely more comfortable.
The merman’s waist was a little too slender. Every time he flicked his tail, the muscles along his lower back flexed and twisted, causing Everly to sway with each movement. It wasn’t particularly comfortable after sitting there for long.
Fortunately, the trip was a short one.
In just two or three minutes, they had covered several hundred meters, arriving at the stretch of beach directly in front of Everly’s villa.
“This is fine. You can let me off here.”
She spotted her grandfather and the other two waiting anxiously on the villa’s balcony. Giving the “seatbelt” around her waist a gentle squeeze, she signaled for the merman to release her. Then she leaned sideways, slipped into the water, and swam around to face him.
“Great Whale, thank you so much for today. If you hadn’t helped me, who knows how much longer I’d have been drifting around out at sea… My family is waiting for me, so I need to head back to shore now.”
As she spoke, she noticed the merman lowering his head, looking visibly dejected.
Everly instantly understood.
She instinctively raised a hand to pat his shoulder, but remembering how easily he had been startled before, she thought better of it. Instead, she gently stroked one of the long locks of hair hanging beside his face.
“Are you feeling lonely? Don’t be. We’ll have plenty of chances to play together later. Besides, I still owe you that filet mignon, remember?”
“W-When…?” the merman asked haltingly.
The moment the question left his mouth, he seemed to lose his nerve. Like an ostrich trying to hide from reality, he buried most of his face beneath the water again, leaving only his damp blue-ringed eyes above the surface.
Looking up at Everly from below, he fixed her with a direct, unwavering gaze, clearly determined to get an answer.
Everly discovered that the merman’s language ability was actually quite impressive.
She had never taught him that sentence before, yet he had somehow learned to use it at exactly the right moment.
Thinking about it, perhaps with just a little guidance, he would be able to learn how to communicate with humans.
The thought filled her with a little more anticipation for their next meeting.
Unfortunately, Everly couldn’t meet the great whale again right away.
“Looks like I’ll probably have to wait until the rain stops before I can come find you. There are lots of fish in the rainwater around here that bite people, so until the rain ends, I most likely won’t be able to come see you. Let me think…”
She paused.
“How about this: on the night the rain stops, after it gets completely dark, you go wait for me at the abandoned pier we passed earlier. I’ll call for you by blowing an owl whistle when I arrive. Like this—”
Everly cupped her hands around her mouth and blew a long, distinctive whistle.
“You need to hide yourself. No matter what anyone says, don’t come out until you hear this whistle, okay?”
The merman remained in the water and obediently nodded.
“Then it’s a promise.”
Everly reached out and gently stroked his hair again before waving at him and making a gesture telling him to leave.
“Alright, I have to go now… You should leave too. We’ll see each other again in a few days.”
With that, she plunged into the water and swam toward the shore, using both her arms and legs to propel herself forward.