Chapter 142 Little Monster
And so three months passed.
I gradually figured it all out.
——After all, they didn’t avoid talking to the two of us.
Who would have thought that two little babies could remember things? Although it was mainly me who remembered things, the protagonist still looked like a normal baby.
This place is like 18th century England, but in addition to the Industrial Revolution and thick fog, this world also has many... strange creatures.
However, they have a hostile relationship with humans, which is somewhat like a fight for survival. However, humans occupy the top of the food chain in this world by relying on the innate conditions and number of the terrifying upright gibbons.
It’s not that humans are the strongest race, but simply because there are more of them and they know how to use tools.
Therefore, the living conditions of various strange creatures cannot be considered good - once they are captured, they will be sold at high prices as commodities.
Like an animal.
But there are also some fantasy species that are difficult to capture, such as mermaids.
The first reason is that most mermaids live in the deep sea, and the second reason is that mermaids have not appeared for thousands of years.
The reason why fantasy species are fantasy species is that to most people they may just be human fantasy - therefore, our mother, a woman from the East named Asu Yue, got a manuscript from somewhere.
It records the birth of the mermaid.
It looked like some unreliable, made-up nonsense, but she believed it and used it on herself.
Then she really gave birth to both of us.
We have no father at all.
——To be honest, I think the two of us are more like the products of some kind of forbidden spell.
Or it can be said that it is made by the human body.
Considering certain characteristics of the future, maybe the protagonist is not a mermaid at all, but just a mermaid-like creature.
But now Asu Yue firmly believes that we are the legendary mermaids, and she firmly believes that she is our only...master.
Yes, she didn't consider us her children at all.
Three months passed, and we didn't even have a name. We were kept in a water tank in the basement...and it was the blond man who took care of us more.
His name is Huoyol. He is Asu Yue's partner, or rather, Asu Yue's backup, and is extremely obsessed with her.
Then I also understood the three-year agreement.
[There's no three-year agreement, host, please don't give it a name without permission!]
They used to be in an organization called "Monster Alliance". Everyone in this organization was extremely pursuing various strange creatures and was proud of owning strange creatures.
They are also the largest exotic creature trading organization in the country.
They would hunt regularly, capturing all kinds of exotic creatures and selling them to wealthy businessmen and nobles.
Asuyue and Huoyol were kicked out of this organization five years ago. Judging from their fragmented words, there was probably a change of leadership in the organization, and then their faction failed, so the losers were kicked out.
Asu Yue was unwilling to give up and wanted to go back.
The most important thing about this organization is of course the strange creatures it possesses, and then she set her sights on the fantasy species.
Honestly, it's a bit naive.
This is not a game. Who will respect you just because your pet is awesome?
Factional struggles are definitely based on conflicting interests between the various parties, right?!
...But she dared to use manuscripts of unknown origin on herself. This kind of thing is basically incurable.
So from what I heard, even if she goes back, we brothers will not be in her hands.
…
There will always be people coveting us.
Oh, I don’t know if my buff that everyone hates is still there.
My tail slapped the water. The basement only had the tiny bathtub we were born in, and there was no way the two of us could fully submerge ourselves in it.
I was fine, but my brother felt very uncomfortable.
I can feel that he has self-awareness, and he should be able to remember what his mother and others said, but he just can't understand it.
So he could only express his dissatisfaction by making a stern face and slapping his tail.
And he expresses it more than ten times a day.
Every time I could only hold his hand to comfort him.
Who is the older brother and who is the younger brother?
[…How long will you have to stay in this harsh growing environment, Xiaoyu?]
Villar wailed in my mind, the effects of the "cross-dressing man" had long since worn off, and he had regained his voice.
But in truth, I wanted to run away just one month after she was born - I don't know if it was because Asuyue did something, but there was no way we could leave her.
Not even Villar could appear.
I even considered taking the protagonist back to the sea via the sewage pipe, but then I received a warning before setting off.
It wasn't a system warning, but more like some kind of world program—
Because she gave us birth, something similar to karma requires us to stay with her to repay her kindness of birth.
Yes, being born is a blessing.
That's why I came to the conclusion that the protagonist and I might not be real mermaids at all. No mermaid can be born.
So, what on earth did Asu Yue, our biological mother, give birth to two of these things?!
[Your way of addressing yourself is still so unique.]
No, I'm scolding the protagonist, I'm just a copy.
…
"My children, your mother is here to see you. Are you having a good day today?"
A meticulously dressed woman in a green dress walked into the basement and put some algae and shrimp into our bathtub. The protagonist picked them up very skillfully, while I was still leaning on the bathtub, watching her.
"Brother, don't you want to eat?"
She touched my head, then frowned and looked at her hands.
"Didn't Hoyol change your water today?"
I ignored her.
I can't let her know that I can understand her, otherwise I will be in big trouble.
Although this woman was a little silly at times, she was generally very perceptive - especially since she didn't even consider us her children.
Without the drive of "love", any abnormality we show will make her alert.
I sank into the bathtub and pried open the hands of the protagonist who was about to stuff a whole shrimp into his mouth.
Shrimp shells are very sharp, and even if we are non-human, we cannot eat such rough food.
I no longer paid any attention to this woman. She would leave soon anyway and it was just her daily routine to feed us "personally".
Just like pets know whoever feeds them is their owner.
She does the same to us.
"Hoyol!"
"Hoyol——"
She started calling the man, and soon the man came to the basement.
"Asu Yue, what's wrong?"
"Didn't you change their water today—"
She questioned.
"My brother's head is covered in a sticky liquid. I don't know what it is. I just touched it and it made me feel sick."
Hoyol visibly shrank his head.
"I'll change it right away, honey, I promise."
He coaxed the woman, "Go upstairs and have some afternoon tea first. I've prepared it."
The two of them exchanged a few more words, and Asu Yue left the basement holding her skirt.
I stuffed half of the peeled shrimp into each of our mouths. In fact, neither of us seemed to need to eat - but they didn't know that.
The protagonist touched my face.
This was probably his gesture of gratitude.
【The host truly achieved the goal of growing up by drinking dew.】
...Why don’t you say you grew up drinking bath water?
Then Hoyol took us out by the arms, one on each side, and put us on the floor of the basement.
That is to say, we two have thick skin and tough flesh, and no ordinary baby can tolerate this kind of raising method - even those who raise ornamental fish know to put the water into the spare basin in advance when changing the water, instead of throwing it on the ground!
The cold water pipe rushed over us, and the impact of the water flow was a little painful, but it only made our bodies turn a little red. The protagonist actually liked it very much - probably because there was so much water.
He likes running water, I see.
Then Huoyol came with a dark face and cursed at us while cleaning the bathtub. He loved Asuyue, so he hated us.
——After all, in his opinion, Asu Yue had been pregnant with us for two years and had focused most of her energy on us.
But he didn't dare do anything to us because we were the bargaining chips for Asu Yue's comeback.
Almost half an hour later, the two of us were thrown back into the clean tub.
The protagonist patted his tail, then stuck close to me, sank to the bottom of the bathtub, and began to study the somewhat mottled scratches on the bottom of the bathtub.
For both of us, today is over.
[It's simply the story of a poor little guy's upbringing.]
[Growing up like this, no wonder the protagonist hates humans so much. 】
This is probably what it means: happy people use their childhood to heal their whole life, while unfortunate people use their whole life to heal their childhood.
I touched the protagonist's head kindly, and he turned his head and looked at me with his bright golden eyes.
"Brother...brother."
A voice sounded in my mind.
It wasn't the kind of talk from the system and Villar, nor was it the kind of talk from the blue and purple people in my head before.
This is what I "heard".
It is a sound that humans cannot hear.
Many animals use ultrasonic signals to communicate - this is the one he prefers now.
I looked at him.
"Brother, I am... your elder brother."
This was the second sentence he said.
But it is much smoother than the first sentence.
Then he hugged me.
"younger brother. "
I hugged him back, and in this newly replaced, relatively deep bathtub, in the basement where no one could see us, the two little monsters hugged each other.
————————————
Then came the day we turned one year old.
We were led out of the basement.
Asuyue and Huoyol got the money from nowhere and moved to a manor in the suburbs.
There is a glass greenhouse in the back garden of the manor - although there is not a single flower in it, and it is covered with black drapes on all sides. A pool about five or six meters long and wide and three meters deep has been dug out inside.
The protagonist and I have a new place to live.
Much bigger than before.
"My children, do you like our new home?"
The two of us were wrapped in baby wraps, and because we hadn't grown at all and our lower bodies were hidden, we looked no different from human babies.
Asuyue and Huoyol moved us to this place.
And as time went by, I reacted to Asutsuki's words according to the protagonist's reaction, so now we both nodded.
Asu Yue's attitude towards us gradually improved.
Maybe she realized we could understand her and decided to pretend, or maybe she had a change of heart. Anyway, she at least started to act like a mother.
Even if it's fake, it's a good thing for the protagonist.
She put us into the new pool, and the protagonist sank to the bottom as soon as she entered, while I lay on the edge of the pool and watched her.
Until she took out a hard riding whip.
Knocked on the water.
"You are already one year old, so there are some rules that should be taught to you."
She looked as if she was admiring me, and tapped the water lightly with her whip. "Brother, call your brother up—"
"As your mother's children, I didn't say leave, you can't leave, understand?"
I:……
Is she planning to train us like a dog?!
I just finished praising her.
[…I can’t bear to watch any of this anymore.]
【We are a company that respects human rights, right?!】
Seeing that I was reluctant to move, she raised her hand and whipped the horsewhip.
"Didn't you hear what your mother said?"
The whip made a sound of breaking through the air. Just as I was about to dodge, a figure flashed by and stood in front of me.
“Snap—”
A crisp slapping sound was heard.
I saw the protagonist standing in front of me, with a red mark running from his back to his arm.
"younger brother. "
When I heard him call me that, my expression was a little confused and a little puzzled.
He... doesn't know this is called pain.
For the first time, I bared my teeth at Asu Yue, wanting to pull out my bone spur—
But I can't pull it out.
Only a few ice crystals came out of my palms and didn't even spread to Asu Yue's feet.
Wait, am I being nerfed so badly?!
"This body turns into thunder"
A bolt of lightning fell from the sky and disappeared before it could touch Asu Yue.
That feeling came back again.
I want to feel the same way as the day the protagonist escaped.
I...can't attack Asu Yue.
Because she is the mother who gave birth to us.
I glanced at her. She had already sat on the ground because of the sudden change, looking at me in surprise and confusion.
I sank to the bottom of the water holding the protagonist.
Through the water, I could see Asu Yue seemed to be standing above looking at us for a while, and then left.
…I exposed my abilities.
No effect yet.
As expected, even I would become abnormal if I were raised in this almost claustrophobic way!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
