Mercer and Merumi had just started to explore the ship when they saw Yale and Kaigur were walking together in the opposite direction.
“Oh, Mercer, I see that you had a good idea to help Merumi moving around the ship.”
Yale laughed when he saw the way Mercer was carrying Merumi like a princess.
“Treat her well, if you make her cry…”
Kaigur didn’t like to see his sister being carried like a princess by Mercer, but since Mercer was Yale’s disciple, he couldn’t do anything about that. Thus, he decided to endure it as far as Mercer didn’t make Merumi cry.
“Kaigur, Mercer will treat her very well, he is a very reliable kid. Mercer, until we return, you must take care of her.”
Mercer nodded to his master’s words.
“Don’t worry master. I will treat her very well. Now, we are exploring the ship.”
Yale smiled after hearing those words.
“Very well. After we return to the ship, you two can report to me any discovery you made.”
Yale knew very well every part of the ship, but Mercer didn’t know that and was very happy seeing that his master was interested in his discoveries.
“You must play now that you have time. After your playtime ends, you will need to work hard.”
Mercer nodded again to Yale’s words; he knew very well that he couldn’t be playing all the time and that he also needed to work hard on training his water spells. Of course, since Yale was busy, Mercer knew that his lessons needed to wait.
“Brother, are you two already leaving? Weren’t you going to plan the strategy?”
At that moment, Merumi spoke. She felt quite ashamed about her current position, but she couldn’t believe that the strategy meeting ended so quickly.
“The strategy is already planned.”
Instead of Kaigur, the one who replied was Yale, but Merumi saw that her brother nodded at Yale’s words, so she could only accept it even though she didn’t understand the reasons.
When Yale and Kaigur left the ship, Mercer and Merumi just continued their expedition because they knew that going with them wasn’t a good idea.
After all, Merumi believed that if it weren’t because Yale needed someone to guide him, even Kaigur would have remained in the ship.
At that moment, Yale and Kaigur reappeared on the same place where they were talking before entering the Storage Space.
“Yale, it isn’t that I have doubts about your plan, but you didn’t tell us the whole plan. Are you sure that it would work?”
Initially, they were to plan some strategy together, but Yale suddenly made Kaigur end his explanation about the Mermaid Race headquarters, and then Yale started to transmit some orders individually.
Yale also forbade others to share their part of the plan, so besides Yale, no one knew the whole plan.
Kaigur’s job was being Yale’s guide, and he didn’t receive any other order besides not telling others about the plan, but Kaigur believed that it was evident for everyone that he was only the guide.
“I am sure that the plan will work as long as everyone follows my instructions.”
Yale was confident in his plan, but that plan was quite special, so he didn’t dare to disclose it to anyone.
“Using a normal plan, we may obtain the World Sea Pearl near the end of the quest time. I bet that it was the intention of my past life since that plan is the best option I almost all cases. Moreover, it matches with the time I have to fulfill the quest.”
Yale had already deduced how to execute that plan, that although was slow, it was stable, but he didn’t plan to use it.
“However, there is a better option that will allow us to obtain the World Sea Pearl quickly and will offer more benefits. There is a variable that not even my past life noticed and without that variable the plan has the certainty to fail, but including that variable, I am certain that this plan will work. I won’t follow the plan my past life visualized for me; I will make this plan work and surpass my own past life.”
Yale was thinking in that when they started to swim in the direction where the Mermaid Race lived. Kaigur had already changed back to his merman form as the swimming speed of that form was better.
The place wasn’t too far but, they swam two days before some dwellings appeared in front of them.
“Will we enter now?”
Kaigur didn’t know if Yale planned to start immediately or wait for a while.
“Personally, I would want to rest for some days, but then the plan would fail, so we need to act now.”
Yale wanted to rest in the Storage Space to recover some Origin Points because they were constantly diminishing while he was in the ocean, but he couldn’t afford to do that unless he gave up on his plan and chose the normal plan.
The day they reached the place where the Mermaid Race lived, was the last day of the Mermaid Festival, an important day for the whole Mermaid Race. If it wasn’t because the mermen and the mermaids were too busy preparing it, there was no way Kaigur got poisoned nor that Merumi managed to leave alone to look for an antidote.
That festival was one of the conditions Yale needed to fulfill his plan provoking that he couldn’t waste time.
“I will cast an illusion around myself making people think that I am a merman, making that they would ignore my presence, I will be following you from behind. You need to reach the place where the matriarch will do the last part of the ceremony.”
Yale only planned to use Body Illusion to fool others as even if he used Shape Shift, the tail would be useless and would just diminish Yale’s mobility.
“Nearing that place… Probably that it is impossible. The Mermaid Festival is a celebration of the day when the Mermaid Race absorbed the declining Merman Race, and since current matriarch ascended to power, it is also the day where we are discriminated the most.”
Yale turned his head towards Kaigur.
“That doesn’t matter. You just need swim towards that place; it doesn’t matter how you reach it, as long as you manage to reach that place, you would have fulfilled your part. No one of us will die in this plan. Remember that I will be following you, even if someone acts against you, your life won’t be in danger.”
Kaigur nodded after hearing Yale’s words. He didn’t know anything about the plan, but from the start, the plan was for helping him to recover his heirloom, so he decided to put all his trust on Yale.
Kaigur lost track of Yale after advancing a while, but he believed that Yale had just hidden himself among the rest of merman to avoid catching attention.
“Oh, you dared to return.”
A group of mermaids blocked Kaigur’s way, and after some seconds, Kaigur was surrounded.
“You are accused of high treason for killing Merumi. It was obvious that a barbarian with the Sea Race Bloodline would even kill those of his own family.”
The mermaids surrounding Kaigur were all at the Veteran Rank, and the leader who was speaking was at the Master Rank, there was nothing that Kaigur could do to resist them.
“You are the ones who put a trap to kill my sister. I would rather kill myself than harm Merumi!”
The leader of the mermaids didn’t listen to Kaigur’s words and tied his hands and put a seal on Kaigur’s body rendering him powerless.
“Shut up criminal. It is already a crime that a beast like you could have some of our Mermaid Race Bloodline, but don’t worry, after today there wouldn’t be any trace of blood left on your body. You killed someone with the potential to become the next matriarch, so you are the greatest criminal since those barbarians of the Sea Race lost against us.”
The mermaid had a vicious face while saying those words, that mermaid was the same one who tried to find Merumi’s corpse before and had just returned after failing to find it.
“Everyone, listen! Today the last barbarian of the Sea Race will die on the main altar as an offering for the peace and prosperity of the Mermaid Race. The Sea Race was just a group of barbarians that lose against of our sophisticated techniques, and after we let them join as our subordinates, they dared to create mix-bloodlines bastards like this one! Finally, the bad blood on our race will be cleared up!”
There were a lot of cheers to that mermaid’s words and Kaigur felt that everything had ended for him.
“Wait, the main altar is the place where Yale asked me to go. The method doesn’t matter, so I will still be fulfilling the plan even if I go there as a prisoner.”
Seeing that Kaigur didn’t offer resistance the mermaid was quite angry, but she couldn’t beat him in public without reason. Then, she just grabbed him by the neck while swimming towards the main altar.
