Chapter 1763 Battle of the Great Ocean, Part 1 (7)

Leon's POV

I honestly never thought I would have to use something like this device, especially since going underwater was never exactly something I had considered an important skill to develop.

It was a specially designed suit that allowed me to travel underwater while still being able to breathe and communicate normally, and more importantly, it prevented my body from getting wet while I was submerged beneath the ocean. The suit also provided a significant boost to my swimming abilities, which was definitely useful considering that I was about to travel through an entire underwater kingdom.

The whole thing was basically a combination of a diving suit, communication device, and some kind of magical swimming enhancement system.

I was going to use this suit so that I could meet and speak directly with the Queen of the Mermaid Kingdom, and considering that she lived beneath the ocean, I figured showing up while completely unable to breathe underwater would have made for a rather embarrassing first impression.

Serune, on the other hand, had absolutely no problem with any of this.

She swam beside me with the kind of ease that made me slightly jealous, moving through the water as naturally as someone walking down a street. Her movements were smooth and controlled, and she barely seemed to notice the pressure of the water around us.

I, meanwhile, was wearing what basically amounted to a technological miracle just to keep up with her.

"Here we are," Serune said while swimming beside me. "The Mermaid Kingdom."

I looked ahead and finally saw it for myself.

The Mermaid Kingdom was an underwater marvel, an enormous and mysterious civilization built beneath the ocean in a way that made it difficult for me to believe something like this could even exist in this world.

I had seen plenty of strange things since arriving in this world, but seeing an entire civilization existing beneath the ocean was still something else entirely. There was something fundamentally strange about looking forward and realizing that what appeared to be an endless stretch of blue water actually contained an entire kingdom hidden beneath it.

The sight before me was so strange and beautiful that I could only stare at it for a moment, trying to take in everything that was surrounding us.

The architecture was unlike anything I had seen on land, and the entire environment seemed to have grown naturally rather than being constructed in the usual sense. Huge coral structures stretched throughout the kingdom, some of them so massive that they looked like enormous buildings from where I was swimming.

It was difficult to tell where nature ended and civilization began.

While we were on the way there, however, someone immediately came toward us.

She swam toward us with surprising speed, cutting through the water with an ease that made my own movement look embarrassingly clumsy by comparison. Once she got very close to us, she suddenly slowed down and stopped, staring directly at Serune as though she had just seen a ghost.

"S-Serune...?" she asked.

"M-Mother..."

Serune looked at the woman and called her that, and the moment she did, I immediately understood what was happening.

If she was calling this woman Mother, then that must mean she was the Queen, right?

Well, now that I looked at them properly, I could definitely see the resemblance between them.

The Queen's expression changed almost immediately.

"Serune!"

She went forward without hesitation and swam directly toward her daughter before pulling her into a tight embrace. The movement was so immediate and emotional that it was obvious she had completely forgotten about everyone else around her.

Honestly, I could not blame her.

Serune had been kidnapped and separated from her family for many years before she was finally found by her mother, so seeing her daughter alive and standing right in front of her again was obviously going to bring out a strong emotional reaction.

"Thank goodness you are back..." she said, her voice filled with obvious relief as she held her daughter tightly.

I could also tell that she was crying, but because we were underwater, I could not exactly see the tears running from her eyes.

Still, I could tell from her voice.

She was genuinely relieved.

"Mother, I missed you too..." Serune said as she hugged her back, holding onto her mother just as tightly.

The two of them stayed like that for a while, apparently making up for all the years they had been separated.

It was a genuinely happy reunion, and I felt that it would have been rather rude for me to interrupt them.

Unfortunately, the people surrounding us did not seem nearly as interested in giving me the same courtesy.

The mermaids accompanying the Queen were all watching me.

They were not exactly giving me friendly looks either.

Most of them had tridents in their hands, held in positions that made it very clear they were prepared to use them if necessary. Their expressions were tense, and several of them were looking at me as though I were some kind of enemy who had somehow managed to sneak into their kingdom.

I suppose from their perspective, I probably looked suspicious.

I was an outsider who had arrived alongside their missing princess, and I was wearing some strange-looking mechanical suit that clearly did not belong to their culture.

If I were in their position, I would probably be suspicious too.

"Um... Please, don't be rude to him. He's my savior," Serune said after noticing the hostile looks they were giving me.

Her words immediately caught the attention of the surrounding mermaids, although most of them still looked suspicious.

The Queen, who had previously seemed completely unaware of my existence because all of her attention had been focused on her daughter, finally turned her attention toward me.

Her eyes settled on me.

Unlike the others, she did not immediately reach for a weapon.

She was still giving me a hostile look, but there was something more controlled about it. She seemed to be evaluating me rather than simply deciding that I was an enemy.

That was probably a good sign.

At least I was getting the opportunity to explain myself before being stabbed by a trident.

"Nice to finally meet you, Queen of the Mermaid Kingdom," I said. "My name is Christopher Faust."

"Christopher Faust?" she repeated, as though she were trying to remember where she had heard the name before.

Her expression changed slightly.

"Your name has reached all the way across the world, and apparently even as far as here, but I never expected that I would actually meet you. Why is someone like you here?"

It seemed like she was at least willing to hear me out.

That was good.

I really did not want her to throw me out of the kingdom immediately simply because I was not the same race as her people. Considering the number of guards surrounding her and the weapons they were carrying, getting kicked out was probably the best possible bad outcome I could hope for.

"I came here because I heard that the war on land seems to have found its way into the ocean," I explained. "Considering the fact that the Great Ocean is extremely important to the place I am protecting, I believe it would benefit both of us if I came here to discuss certain matters that you might find interesting."

I deliberately kept my explanation vague.

There was no point in throwing every piece of information I had at her immediately, especially when I did not yet know how much she already understood about the situation.