Diary of Raising a Mermaid
Chapter One
Chapter One
A breeze blew across the ocean's surface, giving rise to rippling waves. The ocean was warm, and all kinds of colourful fish swam in it leisurely.
It was quiet and serene, just like a dream.
As a matter of fact, Lansi panted heavily as he floated, exhausted, in the ocean. He thought that this was all an unbelievable nightmare.
The lukewarm ocean water gently washed over the surface of his body. And when he leaned upwards, he could see the sea through the blue of the seawater.
A white fin that resembled a white lotus flower wrapped around Lansi's upper body as he sunk.
Lansi spluttered out a bubble forlornly.
He could breathe well now without any obstruction in the ocean, but now there was another problem-
Who can teach him - who was now a fish - how to turn over?
Lansi tried to flip over again, but his tail was about two metres long. The force he produced wasn't balanced over his entire body, which only caused him to sway with the currents. After a while, he accidentally bumped into a fish which was minding its own business.
The little fish was confused for a moment but when it saw Lansi, he 'booped' Lansi's face with its tail and swam away like the devil was hot on its heels.
Lansi: "..."
Running out of options, Lansi could only hug himself and tried to recall how he had come to this situation with a determined face.
It has been an hour since Lansi had woke up. Which is another way of saying, Lansi had only been a mermaid for less than an hour.
An hour ago, Lansi woke, and when he found himself covered in a white layer of something, he was shocked.
Lansi clearly remembered being on a cruise ship before.
It was a holiday that he had spent blood, sweat and tears to earn, and he decided to go on a cruise whilst he was still on holiday.
The cruise ship was called Queen Mary, and the tickets were remarkably expensive.
After getting on the ship, Lansi got ready to relax. He had gone to a party with his colleagues just the night before. He was three sheets to the wind (drunk) and then stumbled back to his room. He laid on the soft bed and got ready to party again the next day.
But, when he next opened his eyes...
A layer of white film?
This was not the way to prank something, right?
As he spluttered, Lansi tore at the white film that surrounded him.
The white film felt squishy to the touch, just like soft candy. Lansi only needed to use a hint of energy to tear open a hole. And in the split second when he ripped open the film, salty seawater rushed in.
Lansi: ???
What the hell was this?
Lansi held his breath and tore at the opening in the film. Then, he fiercely darted out of the hole.
After being free from the film, he breathed heavily, and he almost became the first fish to choke on death by seawater-
Where were his legs?
He turned into a mermaid?!
Mermaids who only existed in fairytales and legends?!
At first, Lansi was extremely flustered, but in the next second, he suddenly felt an attraction to himself.
His legs had been replaced by a long tail. The upper part of his body was bare and, starting from the waist, the scales of the tail started to extend upwards and merged with his skin.
Lansi's short hair had turned into silvery-white, long hair, which swayed in the current. His nails had sharpened and there were delicate webbing between his fingers.
Lansi thought he was still dreaming. He wanted to ask for help, but what came out of his mouth was a very strange sound.
“YI——YA——”
In the next second, Lansi's eyes widened in horror, and he subconsciously reached up to touch his throat.
It was then, he finally realised that he was not dreaming and had turned into a real mermaid.
But he was a mermaid without an amazing voice like the legends had depicted!
Lansi was terrified out of his wits.
He flipped his tail a few tails, but his every muscle refused to listen to his commands, which meant that Lansi was unable to control the direction he swam in. In the end, he slammed into a rock nearby, and the pain smarted so much Lansi wanted to cry.
But at the thought that mermaid's tears turned into pearls (from what the legends said), Lansi was afraid that he would cry himself to blindness and stifled back his tears.
Lansi waited patiently for himself to sink further into the oceans. When his back brushed on a rock, he grabbed it. And when he turned his head, he saw empty white eggshells on top of the rock.
Even though Lansi didn't want to admit it but, this was the place where he was born.
After struggling for a few more times, Lansi half crawled, half floated to the eggshells with the help of his long tail. Then, he sat down beside the hollow egg, feeling dejected.
He had no idea what the hell was going on, and even less of an inkling on why he came out of an egg.
The egg, which had been soft to the touch, hardened after Lansi broke out. As soon as Lansi touched it, the shell crumbled into dust and scattered away in the ocean.
Lansi: "..."
Great. Now there was no evidence left.
After that, Lansi fell into a trance. He sat foolishly in the same place, looking on into the endless ocean and listening to the whispers of the various creatures that resided in the ocean. He was stupefied, like a piece of stone.
He was now feeling doubt towards his identity.
If he had just been born, then he should be a fingerling (baby fish).
But if he was a fingerling, then why did he have the form of an adult right after he was born?
Where were his clanspeople?
Even games had NPCs who gave guidance to newbies.
Finally, after goodness knows how long, Lansi moved from his place reluctantly.
This time, however, he moved because he was hungry.
Lansi waited there for around half a day, just to see if he could chance upon another mermaid.
And it turned out that Lansi's expectations all fell through.
Lansi sighed. The only choice he had was to find food himself...
Half an hour later, Lansi was lying on the sand and was ready to cry.
Why? Why couldn't he catch even a scallop?
Lansi had never entertained the thought that he wouldn't be able to catch the shadow of even a small fish, despite having been an athlete in the human world.
The fish was obviously hovering right before him, but as soon as he reached out, the fish suddenly had a sixth sense and darted away. Lansi wasn't fast enough to brush against its scales.
And when Lansi shifted his target onto scallops, he found out that hard way that scallops——
Could run.
'Gadagada', the sound came as the scallop spat water. And then, as if it was laughing at him, it circled Lansi and then floated away.
Lansi: "..."
Lansi, in a daze, sat on the sand for a long time. He rubbed at his eyes, choked out a sob and then decided to see if he could find something else to eat.
His instinct was warning him that he couldn't starve himself, otherwise, something terrible would happen.
“YA——ZI——”
Lansi could help but let out a little cry. He sat up and hugged his tail, contemplating whether he should eat the seaweed that grew nearby as a thread of self-destructiveness rushed through him.
However, before he could attempt eating the seaweed, he suddenly felt the sand shift under him and huge vibrations rocked Lansi's body.
At the same time, all the other fish started becoming restless. One by one, they came out of their hiding places, swam all over Lansi and fled far away.
Lansi moved his tail away as he felt suspicion creep upon him. He straightened his upper body, wanting to see what was happening. In the end, he saw that there was a crack forming on the seabed not far away from him. A stream of bubbles rose from the crack.
An underwater volcano?
Lansi stared at the bubbling crack and frowned.
In the next second, a gigantic tentacle broke out from the crack. Its black surface looked rough to the touch and Lansi was astonished by the suckers that appeared in a range of different sizes on it.
Lansi was stunned for a moment. He was still suspicious that this was a figment of his imagination produced by his hunger.
After it broke through the seabed, the giant tentacle swung around in the water, forming a cloud of dust in its wake.
Then, a few smaller tentacles crawled out of the fissure, and they trembled as they felt the ground around them, as if they were looking for something.
Lansi watched the tentacles continued to crawl until he saw a tentacle reach the place where his egg had been.
And then, as you could imagine, the tentacle didn't get to touch the egg.
Suddenly, the atmosphere of the whole ocean became so heavy that Lansi couldn't help but hold his breath.
He didn't dare move.
But the strange thing was, not long after this, the suffocating atmosphere disappeared in an instant. The killing intent of the tentacles was reined back in.
Lansi breathed out a very long sigh of relief and realised belatedly that he should have escaped.
But just as he was about to swim away, he suddenly felt a force dragging on his tail.
Under the name of ominous curiosity, he looked down and saw a small tentacle grabbing his tail.
Lansi coughed out a bubble. He froze and started to consider playing dead.
However, before he could move, the giant tentacle rushed towards him with the force of thunder strikes.
Lansi only felt a line of coolness on his waist before everything spun.
Because of such extreme fear, he fainted, just like a good-for-nothing would.
But before he fainted, he thought that this octopus... was really big.
——————
When Lansi woke up again, he was laying on a big reed. To be exact, it was a giant sea anemone on top of a rock.
With a mermaid's good eyesight, Lansi could see everything around him. Soon afterwards, a chill ran through his body.
It was pitch black in here. If he wasn't wrong, then he must have sunk to into the deep sea.
And the soft creature underneath him felt like a sea anemone. It had soft tentacles that allowed him to lie down, and there were no poisonous thorns on them.
More importantly, Lansi discovered that he was surrounded by coral bones. They formed a white circle around him, which prevented him from swimming outside.
This... has he become part of an octopus' food reserves?
——————
Just when Lansi started to have an existential crisis, a group of researchers was shocked to the point colours drained from their faces.
There was a layer of heavy doubt in the lab. And what warranted these researchers' reactions? It was because the data displayed on the equipment in front of them was telling them that:
There had been an earthquake at the Nade ocean trench.
~~~
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