Chapter 19
Whoosh—!
The eight tentacles, fanned out in a semicircle, surged toward the jellyfish.
The tentacles smoothly parted the dense seawater of the deep, moving incomparably faster than before Nereia’s evolution.
But.
Crackle—!
‘Mana reaction!’
In an instant, a spark-like mana reaction flared, and the jellyfish vanished from sight.
The eight tentacles Nereia had thrust out so boldly swept futilely through empty seawater.
The jellyfish that had vanished in an instant reappeared only a few meters away, and Nereia thrust her tentacles out again.
The eight tentacles lunged and swung at the jellyfish again and again, but to no avail.
As if toying with Nereia, the jellyfish repeatedly vanished and reappeared amid a spark-like mana reaction.
Each time, it reappeared nearby, only a few meters from where it had vanished.
Crack.
“This is annoying.”
Nereia watched the jellyfish drift with the deep-sea current and ground her teeth in irritation.
Perhaps Nereia’s brain had developed as well when the body evolved into a Primitive Mutant Merfolk.
There was no hiding the irritation in Nereia’s voice as she muttered while watching the jellyfish.
If it was going to run away, it should just flee completely.
Why did it keep popping up nearby, as if making a fool of Nereia?
No, more importantly.
‘How does it even work?’
Was it really moving by leaping across space?
Though irritation still colored Nereia’s thoughts as the jellyfish kept appearing and disappearing nearby, as if toying with Nereia,
Nereia’s gaze and voice had nevertheless taken on a researcher’s tone.
That was why Nereia began to have doubts.
About whether that jellyfish was really teleporting through space.
According to the system, the jellyfish before Nereia didn’t have a predation rank at all.
In other words, it wasn’t even a Lesser Predator. It was merely prey for various deep-sea creatures.
Besides that…
“The deep-sea creatures I’ve found so far have had names that let me infer their abilities to some extent. But this thing’s name doesn’t mention spatial movement at all.”
The jellyfish’s predation rank wasn’t the only thing Nereia had checked through the system.
Nereia had also checked its name, and there was nothing in it related to space.
Unlike the names of the many deep-sea creatures Nereia had encountered so far.
In other words, perhaps…
“That ability might not be teleportation.”
The doubt in Nereia’s voice as the words were murmured gradually turned into certainty.
If the jellyfish were a Lesser Predator, Nereia might have entertained the possibility, but it was hard to imagine a jellyfish with no predation rank using a magical ability like teleportation.
Of course, that didn’t mean…
“There’s no need to be disappointed.”
Even if the jellyfish’s ability wasn’t teleportation, it was clearly quite useful.
If Nereia could apply it to the tail, Nereia would become even stronger.
So…
“I’ll eat you.”
Nereia murmured in a whisper and wriggled the eight tentacles protruding from the back.
There was no need to dissect, observe, analyze, or research the jellyfish right now.
Surely, there was a colony of them somewhere around here.
For now, eating the jellyfish before Nereia and gaining its trait would be enough.
Dissection. Observation. Analysis. Research, and so on.
Those things…
‘I can do all of that with the jellyfish in the colony.’
With that thought, Nereia began to move in earnest.
* * *
Wham—!
Nereia accelerated with the propulsion generated by a sweep of the tail and headed toward the jellyfish.
Perhaps thanks to the current-sensing muscle fused into the tail, Nereia reached the jellyfish with minimal effort, moving with rather than against the surrounding currents, and swung the eight tentacles.
Swoosh—!
The eight tentacles surged through the deep-sea water toward the jellyfish.
The entire sequence took less than a second, but unfortunately, Nereia’s tentacles failed to reach the jellyfish.
Crackle—!
A mana reaction flickered into Nereia’s awareness.
At the same time, just before the eight tentacles could make contact, the jellyfish vanished in an instant.
It reappeared about five meters from where it had been, but Nereia didn’t panic.
As if Nereia had expected the jellyfish to evade the ambush-like attack, Nereia calmly moved the tail.
Wham—!
The tail swept again, striking the deep-sea water and generating tremendous thrust.
Using that thrust, Nereia accelerated sharply and charged at the jellyfish.
Once more, Nereia reached the jellyfish’s very nose and swung the eight tentacles, but…
Crackle!
With that familiar spark-like mana reaction, the jellyfish vanished, and Nereia’s eight tentacles once again swept through empty space.
And so, the jellyfish vanished; Nereia chased it; Nereia attacked; it vanished; and Nereia chased it again when it reappeared.
How many times did they repeat that whole sequence?
Crackle!
Swoosh!
Chasing. Attacking.
Chasing again. Attacking again.
After dozens of repetitions of chasing and attacking, Nereia finally stopped and grinned.
“I get it. I know how you’re able to move like that.”
It wasn’t teleporting through space.
It was simply moving so fast that even Nereia, after evolving into a Primitive Mutant Merfolk, couldn’t follow it with their eyes.
And more than that…
‘It leaves no trace of its movement.’
This was the deep sea.
A world made of dense seawater.
Naturally, moving your body left a clear trace.
After all, when you moved around in a swimming pool or stream, little bubbles formed, didn’t they?
Though bubbles like that were hard to form in the deep sea, movement still left traces.
The calm current would be disturbed.
Or a current that had been flowing smoothly would suddenly come to a stop.
But this jellyfish was different.
It left no trace of its movement at all.
No, it wasn’t that no trace existed. The trace was simply incredibly faint, and incredibly subtle.
So subtle that even Nereia’s tail, which could sense the slightest flow in the surrounding currents, couldn’t detect it.
But not anymore.
Nereia hadn’t pursued it dozens of times for nothing.
Nereia had observed it.
Everything about the jellyfish.
As a result, Nereia could now sense the jellyfish’s movement through the tail.
The faint yet stealthy distortion of the currents that occurred whenever it moved.
Besides that…
“You know, that seems like a pretty big risk. Are you going to be okay?”
Nereia grinned at the jellyfish once again and spoke.
Yes, everything came with a risk.
If something could move at a speed that even Nereia’s eyes couldn’t follow while leaving virtually no trace of its movement, there had to be a risk involved.
“I’ve been watching you, and you’ve gotten a lot smaller than you were at first.”
Nereia said, grinning again and again.
Of course, it wasn’t just its size that had decreased.
At some point, the number of its softly waving tentacles had clearly dwindled as well.
Though Nereia still hadn’t figured out how it could move so fast or how it could move so stealthily,
“If I eat you, don’t you think I’ll find out the secret?”
Nereia had an ability called Trait Predation.
The ability to acquire the traits possessed by a deep-sea creature by eating it.
In other words, Nereia could learn the secret simply by devouring it, without going to the trouble of studying it.
So…
“Be a good sport and let me eat you.”
Wham—!
No sooner had Nereia finished speaking than Nereia moved.
Each time Nereia moved the tail, the surrounding seawater was pushed aside.
Propelled by tremendous thrust, Nereia charged toward the jellyfish at high speed.
An overwhelming speed.
Unfortunately, Nereia’s ‘speed’ couldn’t catch up to the jellyfish’s ‘speed.’
Nereia knew that perfectly well, too.
But…
‘I don’t need to catch you.’
Right. Nereia didn’t need to catch up to it in speed.
Just maintaining the current situation would be enough for the jellyfish to destroy itself.
And as the game of pursuit began again and continued, the jellyfish’s size started to shrink noticeably.
The number of its wavering tentacles decreased rapidly, too, and the distance it could move—which had initially exceeded five meters—had shrunk to barely a meter.
The longer the chase continued, the slower the jellyfish became. The traces of its movement also grew much clearer than before.
And now.
Crunch—!
“Got you.”
Having succeeded in catching up to it, Nereia used the eight tentacles protruding from the back to devour the jellyfish.