Chapter Nineteen: The Ruins of the Fishman Village

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The river flowed gently beneath them.

Two long, narrow fishing boats glided toward the opposite bank under the fishermen’s steady poles.

For a single fishing boat, carrying five people at once, along with a fisherman and a fishman, was already more than a little difficult.

It was even worse considering that four of the passengers were wearing armor.

Even after splitting into two boats, they still seemed somewhat cramped.

“Your Highness, why—why can you communicate with these fishmen?” Aliris asked, seated beside Kana.

The blue-spotted fishman sat on the edge of the boat, paddling at the water with his short arms while chattering away. He seemed utterly fascinated by the experience of riding in a boat.

“It can’t really be called communication. The fishmen’s internal language is extremely crude as well. They rely mostly on tone and pitch, combined with a few gestures, to express themselves.

“So, in general, they can easily understand the intentions of other races. It’s the other races that have difficulty understanding the fishmen’s expressions.

“That’s how the fishmen communicate among themselves too—especially between different tribes.”

Kana explained this from beside her.

Both Aliris and Blake wore expressions of sudden enlightenment.

“Your Highness, your knowledge is even broader than I imagined,” Blake said, sounding impressed.

He felt that this already counted as fairly obscure knowledge.

He could not imagine what sort of profoundly bored person would take the trouble to learn such things.

Yet Kana not only knew about them—he could even put that knowledge to practical use.

Had Kana heard him, he would have had to tell Blake, “That’s what players are like.”

Blake frowned and asked, his expression growing slightly serious, “Your Highness, do you have some purpose in going to the opposite bank? I must warn you, although these fishmen have no conflict with us, they are not exactly civilized creatures. It is entirely possible that they could create conflicts we never anticipated.”

He was worried that Kana might do something to anger the fishmen. After all, Kana was, at heart, a prince of a kingdom—a person of noble status.

And fishmen… were little better than beasts, at least in Blake’s opinion.

Kana smiled and gave him a reassuring look. “Since I understand the customs and habits of these fishmen, I naturally know how to interact with them properly. So don’t worry.”

Blake nodded. A warning was the utmost extent of what his duty required.

With the breeze drifting across the river, the boats gradually fell silent.

Kana gazed at the fishman.

The reason he cared about blue-spotted fishmen was that, along the coast nearest the beginner’s village at the beginning of the story, there was a tribe exactly like this one. It was also a neutral faction from which players could accept various quests.

Fishmen could be found throughout almost every watery region of the world. They were not particularly aggressive, and they even cleared away some of the refuse along the riverbanks.

Because of certain customs within fishman society, they rarely formed large tribes.

A fishman tribe of a thousand people was practically the limit. As a result, the territories they occupied along the coast were never very large.

To ensure their own safety, they often built their villages in places such as reefs or beneath cliffs.

This was also why most intelligent races rarely went out of their way to exterminate fishman tribes.

There were countless fishman-related quests in the game, issued by the fishmen themselves.

By the middle and later stages, every player had mastered that wild, gesticulating method of communication.

The reason players were so enthusiastic was that fishman quests often rewarded them with equipment of wonderfully bizarre designs.

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One had to admit that, once players reached the later stages of the game, they developed a fondness for ridiculous things.

Fishmen were identified by their spots. Differences in color, density, and pattern indicated different tribes.

The term “blue-spotted” was enough to confirm that they belonged to the tribe living along the coast nearest the beginner’s village.

Most importantly—

The very first quest involving a Genesis Stone began with this tribe.

During the early and middle stages of the game, the stone was little more than background scenery. Once obtained, it became an extremely important quest item, but it could not be used by itself.

However, every Genesis Stone unlocked a series of quests with extraordinarily generous rewards.

Thus, during the early and middle stages of the game, a Genesis Stone was practically synonymous with top-tier rewards.

As Kana pondered this, Old Pete’s voice reached his ears.

“My lords, we’ve arrived.”

Kana came back to himself, and the group disembarked.

They instructed the two fishermen to wait by the shore for their return, and Blake casually gave them a few copper coins.

Amid a chorus of thanks, they followed the chattering fishman into the distance.

They had not gone far when two fishmen came running toward them from afar, each carrying a long spear made of stone.

After casting wary glances at Kana and the others, they began communicating with the fishman before them through an animated display of gestures.

“They really do communicate like that,” Aliris remarked, fascinated.

After they had gestured at one another for a while, the fishman who had brought them there waved his arms at Kana.

Kana merely nodded.

Then he turned around and said, “He wants us to follow him.”

The group followed him around a short bend and soon caught sight of the fishman village beside a shallow pool.

It consisted of crude shelters built from branches and leaves.

Bones and all manner of refuse were scattered around them.

By now, it could almost be considered a small village.

Fishmen were everywhere.

They came in all shapes and sizes—some fat, some thin.

“Look at that one. Does that still count as a fishman?” asked Kesha, one of the accompanying knights, pointing into the distance.

The fishman stood nearly five feet tall. Compared with the others, who were less than three feet tall, he towered above them like a crane among chickens.

He was also considerably more powerfully built, and in his hands he carried an enormous bone club. An unknown fish’s skull had been fastened to its head.

The moment Kana saw him, he was almost certain that this was the very tribe from the coast near the beginner’s village.

“Strong Fish”—that was the name of the fishman.

A third-level fishman warrior.

At least, that was how he had been labeled when Kana played the game.

“To be honest, although I’ve lived on the opposite bank for so long, this is the first time I’ve come here and seen the fishmen’s village with my own eyes,” Blake said with a sigh.

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“So, what’s your first impression?” Kana asked with a smile.

“It’s considerably better than I expected. I thought they simply dug holes in the sand and buried themselves in them or something. I never imagined they could build houses. Though these houses…” Blake glanced around. “They’re rather crude.”

While everyone was chatting, an elderly fishman emerged from the village. He was clearly much older than the ordinary fishmen.

Unlike the others, this old fishman wore decorative garments strung together from shells.

His appearance was also somewhat different. The heads of the other fishmen tapered to a point like fish, with their eyes set on either side. This fishman’s head extended outward on both sides in a triangular shape, and his eyes were slanted along its edges.

He also leaned on an enormous coral staff, from whose tip hung bells made of shells.

They chimed with every step he took.

Strong Fish followed beside him, protecting him.

When Kana saw the old fishman, he smiled faintly, placed his hands behind his back, and bowed slightly.

“Greetings, Froghead the Prophet.”

The old fishman was clearly astonished. Seeing that Kana had performed one of the fishmen’s own forms of etiquette, he immediately developed a favorable impression of him.

“Greetings, kind human.”

The four people standing behind Kana all widened their eyes.

The fishman had spoken.

And he had spoken in the common tongue.

“I never expected to meet a human who understands fishmen. Little Shell has already told me that you saved him. Thank you for your kindness.”

The fishman prophet’s accent was rather strange, but his words were still clear enough to understand.

“I was interested, so I learned a little about your people. Prophet, I’ve heard that you possess a semicircular relic tablet, and I’m very interested in it. What must I do for you to give it to me?”

Kana’s words were abrupt and blunt.

The four people who had followed him were left completely dumbfounded.

But the fishman prophet seemed to appreciate precisely that approach. Fishmen disliked anything circuitous or roundabout.

If someone came for a particular purpose, they should simply state it. If a person spoke in convoluted ways, the fishmen would take every part of those convolutions literally.

“You mean this, human?”

The old fishman reached into a small cloth pouch carried by the fishman warrior beside him and pulled out half of a semicircular stone tablet.

Then he handed it directly to Kana.

Kana took it and examined it. Although the memories of his former life had grown somewhat hazy, he was practically certain that this was the tablet.

“That’s right. This is it.”

“Human, this tablet was originally whole. But some time ago, it became half.”

Kana stared at him.

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