Chapter 320: Name
After some persistent negotiation on Everly’s part, the UII finally agreed to take care of the speedboat issue.
As for the artifact she had been hoping for, however, that proved impossible.
The various UII branches had suffered devastating losses during the Gary incident. Countless artifacts had either been used up or deliberately destroyed, leaving even the branches themselves with virtually none to spare. Naturally, there was no way they could hand any over to Everly.
In the end, after all her exhausting efforts, she had lost a pile of equipment, burned through six precious drops of the Panacea to heal her injuries, and walked away with absolutely nothing.
She could only console herself with the thought that, after this battle, the notorious serial killer Gary had finally met his end. She no longer had to worry about the ticking time bomb lying at the bottom of the lake suddenly exploding and causing her endless trouble.
There was another piece of good news, though.
Her giant whale friend had absorbed part of Gary’s power and transformed into a talking merman.
On the fourth day of torrential rain, the tropical storm finally moved on.
The skies cleared. Without the endless downpour feeding it, the floodwaters in Gilosha gradually receded.
Deprived of the water they depended on to survive, the fish responsible for trapping the city’s residents indoors for three days were either stranded on the streets or swept away with the receding floodwaters into rivers, drainage ditches, and canals. Their reign was finally drawing to an end.
By the afternoon, the streets had been almost completely drained.
People cautiously emerged from their homes, using whatever weapons they had to spear the dying monster fish littering the roads. The wounded and the sick, escorted by family and friends, left the upper floors where they had taken refuge and headed to hospitals for treatment.
By evening, electricity had been restored across the city, and the long-lost mobile phone signal finally returned.
As horror movie logic would have it, once the “isolated island” scenario came to an end, it usually meant the incident itself was nearing its conclusion.
It was easy to imagine that, for the foreseeable future, as long as people remained cautious around rivers, lakes, and sewer systems, life would soon return to normal.
Everly’s villa stood by the coast, where the floodwaters receded even faster than in the city.
By the evening they had agreed to meet, the roads through the villa district had already been cleared, and residents were free to come and go.
After letting her grandfather and the others know where she was going, Everly picked up a barbecue grill, several vacuum-sealed filet mignons, and a few electronic devices before walking to the abandoned pier in the northwest corner of the villa district.
The pier was much older than the villa community itself.
After a newer fishing pier had been built, this one had gradually fallen into disuse due to its aging facilities and high maintenance costs, eventually becoming a little-visited attraction on the outskirts of the neighborhood.
Carrying her belongings, Everly crossed the creaking wooden boardwalk until she reached its far end.
To make boarding boats easier, a flight of steps extended from the end of the pier down into the sea. After years of soaking in saltwater and enduring constant corrosion, the wooden steps had become extremely fragile, forcing her to tread carefully with every step.
Once she reached the level of the water, Everly set her things down, sat on the steps, and raised the owl whistle to her lips.
The shrill whistle carried far across the tranquil sea on the night breeze.
As soon as the note faded, the water not far away rippled.
A head surfaced from the sea, a strand of seaweed perched on top like an absurd decoration.
Her giant whale friend had arrived, just as promised.
“Good evening! I brought the filet mignon I promised!” Everly called with a smile, waving at the merman.
Most of the merman’s body remained submerged beneath the water. His blue-ringed eyes rested on Everly for a long moment before he returned a shy smile.
“G-Good… evening… Everly.”
After stumbling through the greeting, he flicked his long tail and slipped beneath the surface, swimming silently through the sea.
His beautiful silvery-white hair streamed behind him like drifting seaweed, tracing a graceful arc through the water.
With a splash, he broke the surface once more.
This time, the merman had appeared directly in front of Everly.
The merman wasn’t the only thing that surfaced.
The strand of bright green seaweed perched atop his head came up with him as well.
After all that swimming, not only had it refused to fall off, it had become even more tightly tangled in his hair. Against his long black-and-white hair, the vivid green blade of seaweed looked almost like a floral wreath from the sea.
A sea-exclusive flower crown… complete with the scent of salt and fish.
“There’s…” Everly pointed at the top of his head. “You’ve got some seaweed in your hair. Want me to take it off for you?”
“Hm?”
The merman tilted his head, clearly not understanding what she meant.
His eyes followed her finger upward. After staring blankly for a moment, he suddenly lifted his chin and, like a trained seal balancing a ball, bumped his forehead against the tip of her finger.
“I’m not trying to pet you.” Everly quickly pulled her hand back, unable to suppress the smile that spread across her face as though she’d just seen an adorable little animal. “There’s something on your head. If you don’t mind, I’ll take it off for you, okay?”
“Ah…”
The merman took a moment to process her words before obediently lowering his head.
Taking that as permission, Everly reached over and carefully untangled the seaweed from his hair, then casually tossed it back into the ocean.
“I brought a grill and some seasonings this time,” she said as she stood up and set the little barbecue she’d lugged all the way here onto the steps. “I’ll grill the steak in a bit and see what flavors you—”
She bent over to fill the grill with charcoal.
The moment she looked down, she saw the merman happily crunching away on a long, bright green strip.
She looked closer.
Wait a second.
Wasn’t that the very strand of seaweed she’d just thrown back into the water?
How had it ended up in his mouth?!
Her eyes widened.
“Why are you eating that?”
The merman paused with the seaweed still hanging from his mouth and looked back at her with an utterly innocent expression.
“…”
All right.
That one was on her. She’d been making assumptions.
To get along better with her giant whale friend, Everly had done some research before leaving home, looking up all kinds of information about orcas online.
According to what she’d read, orcas were obligate carnivores—the apex predators of the ocean food chain.
But her giant whale friend merely possessed a large amount of orca DNA. He wasn’t actually an orca.
So it was entirely possible that he had a balanced diet and ate just about anything.
Maybe next time she could bring him some vegetables to try.
Everly wasn’t sure whether the merman could eat cooked food. Since he’d silently munched on a strand of seaweed earlier, it was obvious he didn’t mind raw food. So before lighting the charcoal, she first opened a package of steak, sliced the meat into thin strips, arranged them on a plate, and set the plate afloat on the water for the merman to help himself.
The merman stared curiously at the plate for a while before cautiously picking up a strip and slipping it into his mouth.
He chewed twice.
Everly noticed that, compared to a human’s, his teeth were much sharper. Even raw beef posed no challenge at all.
After chewing the meat into small pieces and swallowing it in one gulp, he narrowed his eyes, his cheeks puffing out slightly with contentment.
He clearly loved raw beef.
As she observed him, Everly turned the meat on the grill.
The steak had been sliced paper-thin, so it cooked in no time.
On the steps beside the barbecue, she had lined up an assortment of seasonings: ketchup, black pepper sauce, chili powder, vinegar mustard powder…
One by one, she let the merman sample each flavor.
Her conclusion was simple:
He liked every kind of meat, whether raw or cooked.
His favorite, however, was a rich tomato barbecue sauce sweetened with brown sugar and sharpened with white vinegar.
The merman also had an impressive appetite.
Everly had brought three vacuum-sealed packs of steak, totaling one and a half kilograms, and he polished off every last bite without showing the slightest sign of being full.
After they had eaten their fill, Everly tidied up the steps a little before taking her tablet out of her backpack.
The tablet already had several early childhood education apps downloaded onto it.
Everly had even paid for annual subscriptions in advance. The lessons covered language, reading, mathematics, science, and other foundational subjects for children between the ages of two and eight.
She opened one of the apps and went through a lesson with the merman.
The material was simple—just the uppercase and lowercase forms of the English letters A through C.
The merman couldn’t speak or write. He was, quite literally, completely illiterate.
But he could understand simple conversations, and his memory and learning ability were exceptional.
By the end of that single lesson, he had already memorized how to write and pronounce the letters and had even picked up several short phrases introduced during the lesson.
Everly was convinced that, given enough time, he would have no trouble mastering basic reading and writing skills.
So when it was time to part ways, she left both the waterproof backpack and the tablet with him.
Inside the backpack was a high-capacity portable power station, enough to recharge the tablet more than a dozen times.
Everly carefully taught the merman how to use every device. After agreeing on the time and place for their next meeting, she finally left the abandoned pier under his lingering, reluctant gaze.
For some time afterward, whenever Everly had a free moment, she would head to the abandoned pier to spend time with the merman.
She introduced him to all kinds of meat, vegetables, and fruits from the land. She brought him little gifts of every imaginable sort—mineral specimens, animal figurines, an amber necklace, and various other odds and ends.
Then, after the merman developed a sense of self and came to understand what a name meant, she gave him one.
“Kesuye.”
It was hard to say the name had any particular meaning.
When the merman had shyly grasped Everly’s arm and asked her to give him a name, that strange sequence of sounds had suddenly popped into her head for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Everly thought it sounded wonderfully oceanic.
When she suggested it to the merman and asked what he thought, his eyes immediately lit up. A rosy flush spread across his cheeks, and the fin-like ears on either side of his head fluttered excitedly.
He absolutely loved it.
Thus, the merman’s name was settled—both rather casually and, somehow, not casually at all.
After spending half a month together, Everly finally obtained Kesuye’s permission to introduce him to Misha, Orff, and Old John.
The merman was handsome and exceptionally polite, so everyone came away with a favorable impression of him.
Misha had already met him in his whale form before. Delighted by their reunion, she greeted him enthusiastically and even invited him to play Monopoly with them.
Unfortunately, Kesuye was rather shy.
During the previous weeks, he had gradually become comfortable enough to express himself quite fluently in front of Everly.
But the moment he saw strangers, he immediately clammed up again.
Not only did he speak much less, but he also kept hiding his face beneath the water, leaving only his eyes above the surface as he quietly observed everyone.
Seeing how uncomfortable he was in that kind of situation, Everly ended the gathering early rather than make him stay and be miserable.
Because of the merman, what had originally been a one-month vacation was extended again and again, eventually lasting until the end of August.
When summer vacation finally drew to a close, no matter how reluctant she was, Everly still had to say goodbye to the equally reluctant Kesuye. Together with Misha and Orff, she boarded a plane out of Gilosha and headed back to their distant university to continue her studies.
Not long after the three of them left, Old John finished settling his insurance claim and also departed the villa, returning to his gas station in Dwight State to continue building his underground bunker.
The once-lively villa suddenly became empty.
And the abandoned pier, where laughter had so often echoed across the sea, fell silent once more.