Chapter 193 Another Cave

Apparently, because I was the one who dealt the most damage to it, it was considered my kill according to Emilia, thus the corpse was considered my spoils.

I wasn't really familiar with party etiquette so I just took her word for it.

The Mana Crystal was worth quite a bit and even its parts could be sold as well. Thus, I spent some time disassembling it with the help of my Shadow Summons.

"I've never actually seen an Umbramancer do this before… Heck, I've never even seen an Umbramancer with this many summons either…" Emilia muttered while watching the scene beside me.

"Hmm? Why don't Umbramancers do this?"

"Normally Umbramancers can only summon like… One Shadow Summon, Lady Aster."

Eh?

She saw my surprised face and she showed me a stunned look as well, "Does… Does Lady Aster not know about it? I thought for sure you were using some kind of artefact that allowed you to bypass that restriction…"

"Umm… Why are Umbramancers normally restricted to only one summon?"

"I don't know… I'm only proficient in the very basics of Umbramancy myself but it's just something everyone knows… I think? Unless there's some kind of breakthrough in this magic study that I don't know about?"

I shrugged to show that I did not know either.

She grinned at me, "I suppose this is something you would like to keep secret?"

"Umm… Yes?"

"Hehe~ Five Creas and my mouth is sealed~"

How did I not see that coming?

I reached into my coin pouch and passed her a medium Bronze coin which she quickly kept inside her sleeve before doing a zipping motion on her lips.

After carving up the monster and putting its parts into my Pack of Folding, we were ready to move on again so I recalled my summons back into my shadow, something that made Emilia widen her eyes in shock again.

"Did they just… Are they… Are they in your shadow?!"

I blinked, "Umm… Yes? Are you telling me this shouldn't be possible too?"

"No! That… Do you mean you store all your summons in your shadow and you don't have to chant the spell every time you wish to summon them?!"

"... Yes?"

Emilia gaped at me for a good minute before cradling her head with her hands, "I should have asked for a hundred Creas to keep my mouth shut instead…"

Best

Something tells me I really shouldn't show my Umbramancy proficiency to anyone anymore unless it's an emergency…

I'm just glad that Emilia didn't ask for more money to keep quiet about that since she wasn't an unscrupulous merchant… At least I don't think she is…

On the other hand, Odeta did not seem to think what I did was weird since she was not that interested in magic in the first place. Thus she wouldn't know what was considered normal and what was not and simply continued saying that I was cool.

Ohhh stop it you~

After I finished healing up everyone including myself, we exited the tunnel from where we came from, being a little more cautious now just in case that was not the only Tunnel Stalker around.

What's more, my Iatromancy was only enough to heal surface wounds so we were still quite hurt from the exchange.

We went back to the intersection where the path split into five, leaving Odeta to start inspecting each tunnel to decide where we should go.

Emilia and I waited patiently as she checked the walls and floors of each tunnel while I directed my light ball to aid her to see in the darkness.

Eventually, she took a step back and pointed to the right most cave, "All the tunnels have markings of that monster travelling through them except that one."

I tilted my head at her, "Why would that be the case? Is there something down that tunnel that stops it from going there?"

Odeta shrugged, "I dunno. I'm just saying what I see."

"Maybe… There's other people there that managed to make something that repels that monster?" Emilia suggested.

"I guess that means we're checking that tunnel out?" I asked.

The other two didn't see anything wrong with my suggestion so we decided to just head down that tunnel with Odeta leading the way.

Our walk down the dark tunnel was silent with only our footsteps echoing along the walls, the light ball over my head being our only source of light.

Soon enough, we started hearing sounds coming from up ahead and we paused to listen to it.

It took us a moment to realise the sound came from someone speaking though the words were too faint to make out what exactly was being said.

The three of us looked at each other and nodded before we proceeded once again with more caution this time.

The voice got louder and louder until we spotted light up ahead, prompting me to dismiss my own light ball so that we could approach it without drawing attention.

Going closer, we quickly realised it was someone singing a song up ahead.

Wondering just who could be singing in such a place, we continued until we reached the source of the light.

We emerged in a cavern similar to the one with the goblin village except this one had a pool of water in the centre that occupied a good three quarters of the cavern. On the dry part of the cavern were several pieces of furniture arranged haphazardly though most of them were bookshelves filled with various books.

Sitting by the edge of the water with their sides facing towards us were a group of five women, all of them busy doing each other's hair. The only one who didn't have someone to style at the front was where the singing originated from.

Hearing her singing from inside the tunnel was incomparable to hearing it in person as it sounded especially beautiful to the point of leaving me captivated for a moment. Odeta and Emilia seemed to be affected too as we were content with just standing there and listening to the song to completion.

It took me a moment to realise that all five of them were mermaids

When the song ended, the girl that was singing just happened to look in our direction and she let out a gasp.

"Look! Look! Everyone!! I told you there were people here and you didn't believe me!"

The other four mermaids paused in their actions to look in our direction as well, their expressions ranging from surprise to shock and disbelief.

The first mermaid turned to us as far as she could with her tail still in the water, "Hi!! Nice to meet you! Are you shipwrecked survivors? It's been so long since we had any visitors! And you're all girls too!"

Emilia narrowed her eyes at them, "You don't happen to be related to the Mermaid Pirates, are you?"

The five mermaids looked at one another.

"What's a pirate?"

"Is it something yummy?"

"Maybe it's the name of a ship?"

"Or a group of mermaids!"

"Sorry, we don't know any mermaid pirates here."

Emilia seemed to relax a little but Odeta seemed to still be on edge.

"You're not going to attack us, are you?" She asked.

"Eh? Attack you? Why would we do that? We're all thrilled that we finally got visitors to this island after the last group! It's been incredibly boring here just by ourselves!"

I tilted my head, "There were others here?"

The one who had been singing nodded her head, "Some time ago, a few Mahuns got shipwrecked here and they ran into us as well! They were hiding from some monster I think? Then they stumbled into our little cove here! Are you also here because of the monster?"

I assumed she was talking about the Tunnel Stalker and was about to tell her that we killed it when Emilia stepped forward, "Yes! There's a really scary monster in the caves and we had to run to avoid it!"

Eh?

Oh… I see… She still doesn't trust the mermaids yet and considering we were attacked by a few of them, it might be better to make ourselves seem weaker than we actually are to get them to lower their guards.

That reminds me…

"Were you in the lake outside the cave just now?" I asked the mermaid.

"Oh! Yes, I was! I must apologise for that! I was surprised to see there were people here so I rushed back here before I was able to call out to you!"

"Then how did you get here from there?"

She tilted her head, "Eh? I swam here of course. Oh! You might not know this but the water here is connected to the lake and also to the sea via underwater caves!"

Ah… Ok… At least I know that this island isn't haunted.

What? I'm not good with horror stuff, ok? I'll have you know that that's the one genre that I stay far, far away from! I'll take hot chocolate with marshmallows while wrapped up in my blankets any day over some creepy thing crawling on my bedroom walls at night!

The first mermaid suddenly let out a gasp, "Oh by Yokmii! Where are my manners?! Here! We have some cookies! Do you want some?"

…

There's the sweets!!! Gimme, gimme!!