Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Fish and Flight – Markets and Multiverses

The next day, my mother took me out of the house for the first time. I was incredibly excited after I realized this might be my opportunity to check on Sallia and Little Six. I had been wondering how they were doing all of the years I had been reincarnated in this world without being able to leave the house, and if I was about to see other kids my age, there was a good chance I would be able to check up on the other two. 

My mother slowly undid one door after another in the entryway to our house. Each door required the previous door to be opened before it could be accessed, and there was a fair amount of distance between each door to make it as difficult as possible for children to sneak by. As she slowly worked her way through the doors, I couldn’t help but wonder why the people of this world seemed so afraid of the outside world. My mother held on to my hand tightly as I took my first step out of the house, and I finally got my first real look at the outside.

The first thing I noticed was the ocean. Less than five hundred meters from our house was a boundless expanse of clear blue water that stretched into the distance. As I stared at the ocean, I felt a strange sense of longing well up in my heart. I suddenly felt the urge to take a little dip into the water, but I suppressed the desire. Now wasn’t the right time, though the sweltering heat outside of the house made the nice, cool water seem rather tempting. It made me feel incredibly interested in taking a swim, though, and I wondered if convincing my mother to take me to the water later would be easy or not.

I did my best not to focus on the water as I continued scanning my surroundings. I could see several islands in the distance. Those islands were small enough that they couldn’t house much more than a reasonably-sized village, but several of them were occupied by other villages that looked just out of the stone age.

We also lived in a village. At maximum, I guessed that we might have 600 or 700 people living here, and that was with each family having a generous number of surviving kids. We were located on a sandy beach. The sand spread in every direction for at least a kilometer. The sand itself was something to behold. There were a variety of ‘layers’ to the sand. Each ‘layer’ of sand was a different color, making it look something like a confused rainbow. The width of each layer seemed utterly and completely random, but I could still distinctly see swathes of different colors of sand layered over the beach. 

The houses in the village were made of crude logs. I couldn’t see any evidence of metalworking in the village, although there was some evidence of stone carving. Things seemed to mostly be made of bone and wood, though. In place of nails or clever construction, the villagers seemed to use some sort of light-blue paste to hold their houses together. I vaguely remembered seeing my mother and father use it to ‘paint’ other items a few times, but I had never realized it was a construction material rather than a decoration before. It actually looked like the blue paste was some sort of ‘glue’ in this area, although based on the way it was used to hold several houses together it was probably much stronger than a regular glue.

Farther inland was a massive, awe-inspiring forest. Some of the trees looked like they had been lifted straight out of a painting of an elven forest. They towered far above the crude houses we lived in. However, these massive trees were the exception, rather than the rule. Most of the trees in the forest were more normally sized, creating two different treelines - one treeline made of the massive, skyscraper trees, and one made by all the normal sized trees. 

Most interesting was that our village was built well away from the treeline, and a long, wood and bone fence had been constructed separating the village from the trees. It was as if the  village was afraid of the forest, and felt the need to make sure there was as much distance as possible between them and the treeline. Some of the houses were practically hugging the ocean, squashing themselves against the coastline, but nobody built houses any closer to the trees than they had to be.

Near the forest were a few groups of well-armed people, all of whom had several runes. The lowest number of runes I saw in these groups were some teenagers and near-teens who only had five or six runes, while the adults all had seven or more.

The final thing I noticed was the giant fish. It was bigger than most ships, and quite possibly bigger than most mansions. It lazily floated on the surface of the ocean as it sunbathed, perhaps half a kilometer away from the coastline. It had two dozen eyes. And each of the eyes on the fish was larger than my mother. The fish was at least 50 meters long, making the largest whales look small in comparison.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could make out a few tiny boats heading towards the fish. All of the boats, without exception, glowed silver and flew through the skies.

I finally understood why the boat accident my father and his friend had been involved in had caused them to ‘fall.’ And why it had caused such odd injuries. Father had literally fallen onto the ocean from a height of several dozen meters. If the people of this world weren’t all supernaturally enhanced, that probably would have killed everyone on the boat, regardless of whether they were falling onto water or stone. 

As one of the boats soared towards the fish, the fish seemed to grow wary. I saw a few shadows fly out of the boat, but before they reached the fish it reacted. It flicked its tail at the flying boat, and landed a hit, hammering the boat and sending it wildly spinning through the air. The wind suddenly picked up, swirling around the boat as its silver glow grew brighter. Then, rather than shattering into a million pieces or backing away from the fish, the boat decided to try again and started flying towards the fish. 

The boat looked dented, but after being hit by a tail that weighed as much as a house the people inside were apparently just fine, and raring for another fight.

The fish, deciding it had enough, dove back beneath the surface of the waves, sending tsunami-sized waves roiling across the surface of the ocean. 

Near the coast, a bunch of people who were sitting near the water all stood up, calling out to each other in voices I couldn’t make out. Most of them had four or five runes maximum. Then, nearly a dozen of these people raised their hands towards the ocean. Their blue runes lit up on their bodies, and the massive waves stopped dead in their tracks before shrinking back into the ocean, preventing the water from destroying the village. The dented fishing boat seemed to give up on hunting for the day, and began to fly back towards the island. I could finally see that it was flying more slowly than before. Clearly, it wasn’t entirely unscathed from the encounter, which made me feel oddly relieved. If the boat had been totally unscathed after getting smacked by a sea leviathan, this planet’s power level would have been far more ridiculous than I had thought.

“Close your mouth, Miria.” My mother gently chided me, and I realized I had been staring with my mouth hanging open.

“What was that? The boats can FLY! And the fish –”  I clamped down on my words, embarrassed. Even though most of my memories were missing, I knew I was much older than four years old. I didn’t need to talk like a four year old. My body seemed to be affecting my thinking more than expected.

My mother laughed as she listened to me. “That’s last night’s dinner. Don’t you recognize it?” she said, giving me a humongous grin. Then, her grin faded a bit, as she gave me a more serious look. “Still, they’re pretty tame as far as sea creatures go. Apart from their strength and their size, they’re usually pretty peaceful. It’s why the village hunts them for food,” my mother said as she gave me a mischievous wink. “And they’re pretty tasty, too. The rest of their body has a lot of other valuable uses, as well. The fish stones you used to construct your first rune, bones for tools, organs for fish paste to keep keep walls together and make our houses cool in the heat… the great fish are the lifeblood of the village.”

We’ve been eating giant fish? It’s true that I hadn’t seen mother debone or descale any of the fish yet, and the chunks of fish we’ve been eating were usually pretty large. I had always just assumed they were cleaned up before they entered the house. I hadn’t expected that the fish were so large that processing one corpse was probably work for the whole village.

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“What else lives in the ocean? Those things are tame compared to the other stuff?” I asked, more curious than anything else. Then, after a moment of hesitation, I decided to go for it and see if I could cool off a bit. “Can I go and look a little under the water?”

My mother’s face grew firmer and harder as she stared at the ocean, before she turned back to me. None of her previous joking manner could be seen at all.

“Sweetie, all kinds of things live in the ocean. Scary things live beneath the waves. Don’t EVER go into the water, okay? The things that live near the surface, like the giant fish, are tasty and peaceful most of the time. The deeper you go beneath the waves, the more that changes. The things beneath the surface are dangerous. Especially because, like all people, you’ll feel a certain… pull from the ocean. As if there are wondrous things just beneath the surface, or like it would be nice to just swim for a bit…” My mother shuddered as she stared at the ocean. Now that I was looking closely, even though my mother seemed afraid of the ocean, she also seemed filled with…

Longing. 

It was faint, but I knew my mother wanted to go into the water. She seemed certain it was a bad idea, but some part of her still yearned to enter the waves. I frowned, thinking about my incredibly strange desire to take a swim just a minute ago. I hadn’t thought very much about wanting to swim in the water, since it was much hotter outside of the house, but now that I observed my mother’s expression as she looked at the ocean, I realized something was very wrong with the water here.

“The water pulls people in. Anybody who sees the ocean has a desire to swim, or explore the ocean, and until people get used to the Call of the Ocean, they won’t even realize their desire is unusual. And sometimes, if people just take a little dip below the surface of the water, they come out fine. But most who go deeper into the waves never return. And the deep sea creatures that occasionally swim to the surface of the ocean are more than enough to show us just how scary the ocean is under the surface. Don’t you ever go beneath the waves. The giant fish we eat are already strong, and the deeper creatures are stronger and more mean, so you need to stay safe and avoid the water. Don’t give in to the Call of the Ocean, and don’t go near the water until you have four runes. Okay, sweetie?”

I nodded. If the ocean was really as dangerous as my mother made it out to be, I would be sure to avoid it. Now that I heard my mother’s words, I felt cold sweat break out on my forehead. If no one had been here to warn me, I might have very well just taken a little dip in the water and never returned…

No wonder kids weren’t allowed to go outside much when they were young. If the ocean made people want to enter it whenever people saw it, the Ocean represented a lethal threat just by existing nearby.

At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder. Why did the ocean draw people in? Was the water magical? I shook my head free of the forming headache. Those thoughts were fascinating, but I didn’t know enough to make any guesses right now.

“Yes, mama. I understand.” Then, seeing my mother’s weird mixture of longing and disgust, I decided it was best to change the subject.

“Where are we going?”

My mother seemed to snap out of her thoughts, and turned back to me before smiling again.“For now, you’re going to meet the other kids your age! I know you haven’t had any opportunities to talk to other kids, so I thought you might like getting to know some of the other children a bit. Some other parents are also willing to let their kids move around now, so you can take this as a chance to make a few friends. Doesn't that sound exciting?” She said, putting on a sort of faux-enthusiasm parents used when they wanted to encourage their children to get excited about something. However, I didn’t need encouragement to feel excited about this.

I grinned, feeling enthusiastic as I followed her towards one of the houses. I had already had my fill of taking in the sights of this world for now, and honestly, I felt a little desire to put some distance between myself and the ocean right now. It was interesting, and like everything magical I found it to be an object of fascination and wonder. But right now, I was having a hard time resisting the urge to take a swim, and I wanted some space to clear my head a bit.

Besides, it was time to see if I could find the other transmigrators. My mother and I stepped into the house.

Inside of the house, there were six other children. Two of them were older, a ten year old girl and an eight year old boy. I could see that the girl had four runes and the boy had two, and both of them were talking with each other and ignoring everyone else. The next pair of children were probably seven, and were a pair of boys playing with a few strings of pearls while talking to each other. 

And when I saw the last two, I had to try very hard to resist the urge to start cackling madly. I felt the friendship bracelet latched around my soul - wrist start to heat up, and I could faintly feel the connection I had with two other presences start to flicker. Then, I felt a sort of recognition well up from the bracelet. A notification that I was looking at two other people who were part of my ‘friends’ network.

Sallia and Little Six were the final two children. They were both my age, and were giving me massive grins.