Chapter 140: The Beach Episode!

Our travels continued. The rainforest gradually fell away into the shrublands after only a short month more on the road, and that’s with all the stops that we took along the way. Nothing too special happened during this time, although Granuel did find some more components for my eventual evolution in the many markets that we’d visit.One was the many eyes of a glowstare. It was a lizard monster with hypnotic eyes all over its body that stuns opponents by putting them in an empty trance. The dwarves sometimes had to kill them in their mountain tunnels, and some of those materials made their way down here.

The other one was the wings of a pterodakoters which also came from the same mountains. They were dangerous winged dinosaurs that lived high in the barrier range and was sometimes mistaken for wyverns, but they were definitely much much weaker at only the level of 40 by default.

“It’s coming into view!” Granuel shouted from above the wagon, but I could see nothing yet. The rest of us had to wait a few more minutes until we could behold the peaceful coastal city, and the beautiful shoreline beyond it.

It was a far cry from the last time I visited the beach where only blood and war and awaited. I couldn’t wait to actually experience the refreshing ocean waters this go around. The wagons could not move any faster, and I was almost tempted to just rush off on my own, but Granuel convinced us to at least wait until we’d secured the wagons and dropped off our luggage.

“Have a nice stay!”

“Enjoy the city and the beach!”

We made it to the shorter-than-expected walls, wherein the guards barely looked at our identification before waving us all through with contagious smiles. I appreciated the smell of salt and sea, and then almost drooled once we crossed through the gates and inhaled the scent of fish being cooked in a hundred different ways. Just like that, all thought of immediately rushing to the beach fled from my mind. I practically jumped out of the wagon to begin ordering from the many stalls. I marveled at how big the fish could get, as some of them rivaled sharks if not the smaller whales from Earth!

The people selling them were nice and lively, and so was the general populace of the place. A great number of them were crustecars, as reflected by the many open homes that I could see. There was a pyramid for the dwarves and harpies even here as well, though it was noticeably smaller and less pronounced than the other ones we’d seen. The diverse people of Clearshore sang and danced, and the crustecars of this place especially had developed a strong culture for musical instruments and song. It wasn’t always the most common pastime for their people, but the peace-loving hippies that chose to live on land had pioneered it, and finally, in this nation, it had a chance to grow once more. They were very good at it, as it turned out.

But the crustecars weren’t just musicians and artists. They had the strongest military presence here in the form of soldiers that came from all their undersea counterparts. There were entire barracks and staging grounds all over city that waved the flags of either the Kingdom of Eliana or the Empire of Aldugar. These were two nations that were often at war, but had since entered a state of ceasefire after the atrocities of Angelore Empire towards their brethren above the sea. I’d heard that they and many others were even active back at the main continent and all the other continents of Angelore, being now a constant spike against the empire’s buttside.

“Eyes on the water!”

“Yes sir!”

“Not on your canteen, you fool! The ocean!”

“Aye aye!”

“It’s salty…”

“We literally live there. What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking I’ll retire up here when I’m older. It’s more peaceful.”

“Not anymore.”

“Well, yeah. But don’t you think that we’ll change?”

“This war has been going on for many decades. I… honestly don’t see it ending anytime soon.”

“Guys, shut up! Look! Is that Haell?”

“Oh, the demon?”

“The one that will end this war!?”

“What is a demon anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’d they come from?”

“Are you sure she’s a demon anyway?”

“Do you have fucking eyes?”

I heard them banter once we reached the docks, though most were content to remain quiet and focused on their task. That task being the duty to protect and guard the few ships and the many boats near the city. Their presence was normal, not oppressive, and the sailors here seemed to dearly appreciate them. The crustecar soldiers regularly received free food and drinks from the people they were protecting, much to the sour looks of their officers, but it seemed like they had given up on doing anything about it beyond a few reprimands that they were on the job.

We left the city and then walked a ways away to have some privacy from all the action. My hooves sank along the sandy shores, and the waves lapped coolly against our legs. I grinned, and then tossed Moonwash into the water. That was the start of the festivities, as we all jumped into the salty sea with all of our usual gear and armor worn over our bodies.

“Fuck! This is actually really hard!” I laughed as I tried my darndest to swim, but I kept on sinking so fast whenever I let up for even a second.

“I got you!” Berry burbled from underwater as she pulled me down deeper. I figured out just how long I could breathe underwater as we walked and danced along the shore for quite a few minutes.

“Tag!” Therick shouted and zoomed away. The waters were kinder to him, with his lighter armor and overall lighter body. I gave chase anyway, as the problem with sinking could be overcome through sheer power, like most things.

I tagged him back, and we continued to swim around. The rest of our friends were roped into the game, and I found out that Berry was actually the worst at swimming out of the six of us. Crustecars were built for the oceans, but they dwelled at the very bottom of it. Our friend also had very limited practice in the field, only able to indulge whenever we were near a lake for example.

Angerly on the other hand was surprisingly good at swimming even in her medium armor, and my girlfriend explained to me how it was because she was less dense than I was.

“Was that… was that a jab at me?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The fish and other ocean life around us were predominantly small and of a lower level. Granuel pointed towards the horizon, and there we could see the silhouette of some vast and large lifeforms swimming underneath the ocean, and sometimes breaching the surface. This was because of the density issue as mentioned, though a lot of high-level creatures could also remain small and dense because they had buoyancy sacs inside their bodies or other very specific Mutations. My girlfriend immediately wanted a piece of them, so I followed.

“So that’s why the strongest monsters in the Bottomless Oceanlake were so big,” I mused on the way there. I allowed myself to sink, and then I unfolded my wings underwater just to test out if my spontaneous idea would work.

It did… sort of. The supernaturally strong force of my wings propelled me uncontrollably upwards, whereupon I spun along the water and collided with a large and piranha that was just a bit smaller than me. It was called a pitara, and I could feel the water moving somewhat strangely around it which I recognized from my prior conversation to possibly be the buoyancy sac’s influence.

The ugly seafood snapped at me, but I managed to slash my greatsword fast enough to get those smiling jaws away from my face. My swing was not as strong as it could be due to the water resistance, but the blow sent my enemy reeling anyway for that was just how powerful my body was.

I thought of how I had been driven from my home, the family that I could not meet, and my many enemies that still lived. Those thoughts flashed by in a flash as I pulled them from my memory core, and my next wrathful slash barely lost any power from the water… but the damage was superficial because I almost completely missed! The fish was agile here under the ocean, and I was already sinking!

I quickly swam back up, but got a nasty bite in my shoulder in return. The pitara reeled from my vengeance magic and I swung my sword for a nasty cut, but then I began to sink again.

The water around me boiled. An angry red light shone in the deep blue, and I shoved all that hellfire into my opponent’s face. The fish burbled and writhed from the pain, but I could tell that the flames would not remain quite as long as they often did for the water was oppressive and would eat into the time my magical fire could burn.

My next attack was a sheer wave of wrath. The waters of the ocean did a better job of disrupting magic than common air, but it was still easily overcome, and soon my enemy was but a ruined rotting husk.

“I think demons might not be meant for the ocean,” I gurgled and then surfaced quickly as the air left my body.

After we were done stress-testing the ocean against our armor, we brought out all the swimsuits that Moonwash had made for us in preparation for this trip. I got some obsidian bikinis crisscrossed by red and blue lines like flowing lava.hat?” Berry hedged as the light of the sun was swallowed by the watery shadow.

“It’s too late for that!” I laughed and met the wave head-on.

It… was actually a little bit painful, though I did not care.

Angerly did though, even if she was one of the least hurt. I crossed my arms but did not interfere in the conversation.

My girlfriend could handle herself.

“You know, you should let them win sometimes,” Angerly told me after our game of beach volleyball. It was a fun game to play, though it was difficult with our differing levels, physique, and overall ability. The rubber balls we used had exploded way too many times from the amount of force that I could put into my crisp and beautiful spikes, but anything tougher would be too hard and painful for some of my friends. Not to mention very expensive and hard to find. Good thing Moonwash could make them herself.

“What?” I furrowed my face. “Why? That’s only disrespectful.”

“To who? We’re all just trying to have fun here, Haell. You don’t have to try so hard.” She shook her head, then snorted as she whispered. “You two are so different yet so alike.”

“It’s a game, Angerly. I always try my best. That’s the point.”

“But you don’t always have to win in Angeless or Cursed Survival, do you? I think you just care too much about other things, and get way too competitive about it.”

“No,” I heavily disagreed. “I do some nonsensical things and strategies for fun perhaps, but I’ve never lost on purpose. I’m just… not as good in those games.”

“...Huh. Maybe you’re right. But people have still gotten hurt from how aggressive you can be sometimes. That’s more of my point.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. I try to be careful, but that’s just a part of the sport, isn’t it? The good thing is that we can just heal the damage. No one’s gotten injured badly. It’s no big deal.”

“Hmmmm… can certainly take it. Just keep it in mind, because most people aren’t just fine with getting injured even if it can be healed.”

Eh… she wasn’t wrong. Power was at their fingertips, but most people would only ever try to skim the surface. They did not have the courage to plunge right into it.

“It’s beautiful,” Moonwash said from within my arms as we watched the sunset from high above the sky. The angry red-orange of our star bled beautifully into the waves below, and the calm movements of the sea and the strong breeze around it created a hauntingly peaceful orchestra that was like ambrosia to my ears.

“Yeah,” I agreed and hugged her to myself tighter. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”