I grabbed Dicken’s hand, intent on diving into the water to flee, but dozens of barrels were pointing at the only direction we could have fled. We were still at the shallow end of the beach and quite far away from the deep end, which prevented Dicken and I from using our aquatic advantage. To make things worse, if we were to even make an attempt to flee, the Japanese army would have left us riddled with bullet holes. At the same time, Dicken was holding me even as he stayed motionless in the water. His body had been extremely aroused a moment ago, and holding back made him appear exceedingly fearsome. He was staring darkly at the soldiers surrounding us, preventing them from getting closer, and judging from their nervous looks, they must have taken Dicken to be some sort of dangerous creature.Right now, the best choice Dicken could make was to leave me behind. It wouldn’t be a problem for him to break through this encirclement—if he didn’t have me as a burden.But what if I died i
Dicken lowered his gaze to shoot me a glare as if he had been humiliated, but his expression was otherwise neutral. Then, he lowered his body and rested his head on my palm, rubbing his ear against my fingers and narrowing his eyes comfortably, even purring continuously as if he was enjoying it—I couldn’t even believe that he was my fearsome leader!Gosh, he was just so funny… But considering that there was a shot of rescuing the other captured merfolk, did sacrificing our dear leader matter that much?Even as I quietly assured myself, Dicken’s enthusiastic acting left me with mixed feelings. After all, I had seen him tear his prey into pieces, and to see him suddenly as tame as a dolphin was a little horrific. Though I was basically falling apart, I had to work with him to maintain the act.“Sorry, he was being aggressive just now because that gentleman over there must have startled him. See? He’s very tame, and he listens to me. Anyway, we’re surrendering, and we’ll come with you!
“What are you doing?”A middle-aged man suddenly barked ahead of us, and the Japanese soldiers who were dragging me and Dicken along stopped, with one of them answering, “Captain, we caught a merman and a human while we were patrolling the bitch.”“Hmmm?” The middle-aged man addressed as ‘captain’ was clearly wearing a different uniform from the other soldiers, and he was walking towards us while studying Dicken from head to tail. Soon, his expression turned solemn and he ordered, “That’s the Black Scale King! The one the professor had been looking for so long! Hurry up, separate him from the human and take him to the professor!”“Hold on, sir! Please don’t separate us—he’s going to be violent when he’s not under my influence. I have to stay with him!” Clutching the fishing net, I promptly cried out anxiously, but the middle-aged man impatiently kicked out at me. Nonetheless, Dicken’s tail swept towards me, catching it even as the sharpness of his fishtail tear a gash into it immedi
Soon, after Dicken pretended to be drugged, I was pulled out of a fishing net. They seemed to be under the impression that sedatives would be wasted on a frail human such as myself, and simply kept one gun aimed at my head. I was utterly embarrassed even as I was dragged out of the fishing net—I was only scantily dressed in several pieces of rags, and not covered anywhere else, not to mention that there were traces of my radical lovemaking with Dicken. Unsurprisingly, the soldiers began to whistle crazily at me in the next instant and studied me lecherously. If they weren’t disciplined enough, they would have been rushing to touch me!Nonetheless, I heard footsteps running straight for me, and I turned to find Mary rushing out from behind the crowd and draping a jacket over me. As I swiftly covered myself, the people behind slowly approached me, with Bob in the lead. Several scientists were following him, and he frowned in disapproval when he saw Mary’s kindness towards me.Mary nerv
“Mary, take her to the concentration camp for now. Come back to me in the evening.”“Yes, professor,” Mary promptly replied and walked up to my side, giving me a single glance before following the soldiers escorting me out of the room. Still, both she and I somehow turned around at the same time as we left the steel door—I was looking at Dicken, and Mary was clearly watching Asura, who must have been locked up in there as well. We shared a look of tacit understanding after that, and she blushed a little in embarrassment, looking utterly worried.At that very moment, I was convinced that Mary would be the best asset I had to get out of this fatal situation.After she brought me to the concentration camp, Mary did not leave right away and instead took me to a cell alone. I had expected that because Mary appeared to have many questions for me, but she couldn’t have asked them just now with Bob present. She told the other soldiers to leave with the excuse of a personal interrogation, an
Mary turned back towards me then and continued, “However, I have a bad feeling… I had a nightmare that night, where a ship was ablaze, the crew lay dead all over the place and blood splattered the deck… It was a scene from hell but it looked so real. It made me very scared.” Even as she raised her twitching eyelids, her voice quivered as she continued, “When I saw you again, there was a look in your eyes that told me that you could decipher my dream. Is that really the case, Miss Linda?”I stayed silent for seconds as I organized my own thoughts, before saying quietly, “I know you won’t believe me, but those dreams are all visions of your future in another dimension. You could interpret it as your past life, and if you don’t try to change your fate in this life, everything in your dream would happen again, and that nightmare would be yours and Asura’s future. In fact, I’ve seen your end with him with my own eyes.”“Asura? You actually know the name I gave him… no other person should
There was no telling how long had passed—it was dark and noisy outside the window when I opened my eyes again, with waves of hurried footsteps of soldiers audible from the distance, closing in. Then, I finally heard cannonfire from the distance, and looked outside the window to see that there was red mist over the horizon,with the screams of airplanes and the rattling of bullets soon resounding. The cell where I was started shaking, with dust falling off the walls around me. My chance had come! I peered outside the gap between the steel door and, just as expected, saw that there were no guards posted outside. Hence, I promptly took out my key and opened the door—the concentration camp was just opposite, and the woods which Mary had mentioned were to the left. Keeping myself low with a crouch, I looked around and swiftly made a dash into the woods.The darkness and the woods formed the best cover I could have, and as I kept myself in the darkness that provided a sense of security, I
The further we ventured within the tunnel, the clearer the screams could be heard—it meant that Bob’s lab was getting closer, and I couldn’t help holding my breath at the thought. We turned into another corner then and arrived at a door, dangling with translucent curtains caked in crimson, and I could see something resembling a surgical table through the curtains.Mary and I both started to tiptoe, and while I held my hammer to my side, Mary unsheathed her katana. Using the tip of her blade, she carefully lifted the curtains, and my eyes instantly turned bloodshot from the strong scent of blood. I almost fainted immediately from the horrors inside the lab, and my stomach was churning even after I came to my senses, whereas Mary was standing beside me, holding herself against the wall as she retched.There were several dissected merpeople corpses laid out in a row over the surgical table. There were mermaids and mermen, but all of them had their eyes gouged out, their belly sliced thr