Chapter 1729 - 240 - The Battle at the Black Pole (4)

"Why have you come?" Serune asked.

She was still half submerged in the water, with only the upper half of her body visible above the surface. Her long hair was slightly damp from being underwater, and she looked at me with a curious expression, almost as though she couldn't figure out why I had suddenly decided to visit her.

"Well, I'm planning to go to the mermaid kingdom," I told her. "Considering that you're a princess there, I think it would benefit me if you came along with us. Besides, you've been holed up in this facility for months now. Don't you want to go home as well?"

"To the mermaid kingdom?" she asked, sounding surprised by the suggestion. "W-Well, I would like to, but..."

For some reason, a little sadness suddenly appeared in her eyes after I mentioned that she could return to the place where she was actually a princess. Her expression changed almost immediately, and she looked like she had something else she wanted to say but couldn't quite bring herself to ask.

"Does that mean I wouldn't be able to see you again?" she asked.

Her voice sounded unusually hesitant when she said that, and it made me realize that she wasn't really worried about returning home as much as she was worried about what would happen afterward.

She sounded like she still wanted to stay here, although honestly, I wasn't really going to complain about that. Even though she was a mermaid, she had been staying here for months without any major complications whatsoever, so the arrangement had apparently worked better than I originally expected.

I mean, I had literally made this facility specifically for her.

The place basically looked like a massive pool that was deep enough for her to swim underneath the surface, and there was even something resembling a separate room beneath the water where she could lie down and rest whenever she wanted some privacy. It was honestly quite a good facility, especially considering how much effort had gone into making sure that she could actually live here comfortably.

Still, I didn't think this place was enough for a mermaid to stay here forever. Shouldn't mermaids generally be living in the ocean or somewhere else with a massive amount of water available to them?

That seemed like common sense to me.

Then again, Serune had been perfectly fine here for months, so maybe I was overthinking it.

"Well, if all goes well, I don't think that answer is something you need to worry about," I said. "There might be some sort of circumstance that changes things, but generally speaking, I think we'd still be able to meet each other."

"I-I see..."

Serune still looked like she wanted to say something else, but she stopped herself before the words could come out. She lowered her gaze for a moment, and I could tell that she was thinking about something rather seriously.

I wasn't sure what exactly was going through her head, but I decided not to pressure her into explaining it.

"Well, I guess I would go," she finally said.

"Great," I replied.

"I want to get ready first."

"Sure, we'll go once you're ready."

After I told her that, Serune went back underwater. I had no idea what exactly she had gone down there to retrieve, but I assumed she probably had something important to prepare before leaving.

Whatever she needed, we could wait for her.

Shredica, who had been standing beside me throughout the entire conversation, suddenly looked at me with an expression of pure disgust.

I noticed the look almost immediately.

"What?" I asked, turning toward her.

"You kidnapped... the mermaid princess?" she asked while staring at me judgmentally. She looked like she wanted to grab me by the collar and demand an explanation for my entire existence, which seemed like a rather dramatic reaction considering she hadn't even heard the full story yet.

"I didn't kidnap anyone," I told her. "In fact, I saved her from the slave market in the Empire."

"Whatever you say."

She sounded like she didn't believe me in the slightest.

Her expression practically screamed that she had already decided what kind of person I was, and apparently my explanation wasn't going to change her mind anytime soon.

I couldn't help sighing at that.

Shredica stared at me for several seconds. She still looked at me with judgement. This girl, honestly...

I stared back at her.

I decided that arguing with her wasn't worth the effort.

After a bit, Serune finally returned to the surface.

"Ah... how am I supposed to..."

She looked down at her mermaid tail, apparently realizing that it was going to become a rather significant problem once we actually left the facility.

Well, that would generally be the case, of course.

If you were going to travel across land, you needed feet and legs. Having a fish tail wasn't exactly the most convenient arrangement for walking around on dry ground.

Serune looked at her tail with an increasingly troubled expression.

"Fortunately, there's something that can be done about that," I told her.

"Huh?"

I reached for the bottle of potion that I had prepared for situations exactly like this and held it up where she could see it clearly.

The potion had already worked on Kali and Layla, who generally wouldn't be able to have sex with me normally because of their unique bodies, although the circumstances were obviously different for each of them.

Layla was a giant, and although fucking a giant sounded really appealing in theory, I wasn't particularly interested in discovering whether I would survive being crushed during the process. There was a very significant difference between finding something attractive and actually wanting to become a pancake because of it.

As for Kali being a centaur, I lived with fucking her even if she was a centaur.

Still, that wasn't the point.

The important thing was that this potion had the ability to give feet and legs to races that didn't naturally have them, allowing them to walk around on land without having to rely on their original forms.

It was basically a convenient solution for anyone whose lower body wasn't designed for walking around on dry ground, and Serune happened to fit that particular situation perfectly.

"What's that?" Serune asked while looking at the bottle in my hand.

"It's a potion that should allow you to walk on land," I explained. "It worked on Kali and Layla before, so it should work for you as well."

Serune stared at the potion for a moment, apparently trying to process what I had just told her.

"Something like this actually exists?" she asked.

"It does."

I looked at the bottle again before holding it out toward her.

"Kind of reminds me of the little mermaid, honestly," I added. "Except this time, you don't need to make some questionable deal with a sea witch just to get a pair of legs."

Shredica immediately gave me a strange look after hearing that.

"Huh? Why are you bringing up a sea witch now?" she asked.

"Nothing. It's just an example."

From what her reaction was, it sounded like there was actually a sea witch that exists here.

"That's a very strange example."

"I know."

Serune looked between the two of us before eventually focusing on the potion again.

"Are you certain this will work?" she asked.

"It worked before, so I don't see why it wouldn't work now," I answered. "Although, I suppose we'll find out soon enough."

She looked at the potion one more time before taking it from my hand.