Partner (3)

'Why would you push for…'

She was just trying to go up for a little bit. Although she was surprised by the dense aura of the water, by no means was she trying to give up there.

'Feels like shit.'

'You're strong, wow, okay…'

Why didn't he just wait until I poke my head out of the water and tell me to go down again? Then I would have obediently gone down as well…

Even now, his eyes were looking at her.

What you looking at? You think I was going to give up just then?

Due to such thoughts filling up her mind, Yeorum was momentarily put in a bad mood. But whatever the case, she was in the middle of a training session and Yu Jitae was the teacher. Personal feelings like that weren't helpful so she shook those thoughts away.

Her training shoes were a lot more annoying than she thought so she took them off and threw them out of the water onto the ground. That was when Yu Jitae hurled something into the water and Yeorum flinched thinking that he had gotten mad at her.

She thought he might have misunderstood her throwing of the shoes as a way of protest. Yeorum was about to feel mortified from the misunderstanding but felt a lot better after seeing what it was that was in the water.

It was a small artifact; one that was supposed to be wrapped around the wrist. It looked like an essential watch for divers.

[Depth: 11.4m] [Time: 05:28 (pm)]

[Mana Density: 5.3Ma/p] [↑]

Depth was the underwater depth she was in and time referred to the current time.

Mana Density literally meant the density of mana. Normal places on Earth had 0.5Ma/p, meaning that the mana here was 10 times denser than the one on Earth.

And lastly, the arrow appeared to be pointing at the direction the surface of the water was.

By the time Yeorum looked back up, Yu Jitae was no longer there.

'Anyways, so I have to go down by myself right?'

She turned her gaze back towards the ground. The dark depths of the water slowly entered her sight and she could see a flat piece of land within the darkness that she could lay her feet on.

Strangely enough, there were a lot of flat and extremely wide plateaus of land within the depths of this sea. The land which appeared flat as far as she could see even gave off a slightly man-made feeling.

Yeorum decided to name that flat place the 'field'.

She was about 200 metres away from the field in terms of depths, so the 'flag' Yu Jitae talked about should be somewhere on the field.

That was the objective of this dive.

Her ultimate objective was to go to the very depths. However, Yu Jitae bothered placing 3 flags as if he wanted her to go down step-by-step over the course of 3 times.

'Why?'

Maybe he was giving her time to adapt herself to this environment.

In that case, having an accurate grasp of the attributes of the water here seemed more important than the first objective of going 200 metres underwater and finding the flag. So that she wouldn't be lost when going further down.

Even if it's slow, let's go properly.

That was when chilliness suddenly seeped in through her skin. Yeorum wrapped her arms around her body from the shivering coldness.

'It's cold…'

Yeorum pulled the heat within her body but the moment her heart raised the fire-attributed mana, the water-attributed mana of the ocean swirled around her body and immediately snatched the heat.

'Damn.'

She realised that using more power within this ocean would result in more power being stolen away. Trying to rush there would in fact result in losing all her power on the way because she was still a hatchling with a lacking amount of mana.

She was speechless.

It was as if she was at a casino trying to earn some cash, only to realise that she didn't even have enough capital to play a game. She was trying to solve the problem of not having enough mana and yet that same problem was stopping her on her tracks.

It became increasingly colder the longer she stayed still.

Is it about time to move? No, she still hadn't finished organising her thoughts.

In order to contemplate a bit more, Yeorum shrunk her body like a prawn and wrapped her arms around her knees.

'Hoh.'

Mysteriously enough, she then started losing less mana. About 30% less.

Why was this the case, she wondered and came to a realisation after thinking a bit. It was because there was less surface area touching the water.

By shrinking as much as possible, her thighs, chest, stomach and calves all touched one another. Her legs were in her arms and she lowered her head and rested it next to her knees.

Less of her body touched the water and resulted in less mana loss.

She thus decided to crouch and shrink when taking a rest.

'Hmm…'

With that, she finished a general identification of her location, the objective and some basic analysis on the characteristics of the sea. Yeorum then began diving deeper in.

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[Depth: 50.1m] [Time: 05:38 (pm)]

[Mana Density: 6.1Ma/p] [↑]

She only went 50 metres.

It was only 50 metres deep and yet it took 10 minutes.

Yeorum was dumbfounded. She was pretty much travelling at the speed of a worm right now.

Before, she thought the water was like a tentacle – a tentacle that moved to grab the moment she moved.

However, she changed her analysis a few minutes into the dive. Rather than a tentacle, it was more like the water being extremely sticky.

…Would this be how it feels to swim in nutella?

It had already been 10 minutes since the dive but she wasn't short of breath. In fact, Yeorum was technically still breathing.

By absorbing the scattered mana into her body, she was changing the element of that mana into the attributes of air. There was a related blessing to dragons so she was still breathing normally but the more she moved, the harder breathing was proving to be.

'Hukk, hukk, huu…'

The reason behind the pain stemmed from the fact that the outside mana she was trying to substitute to air were all water-attributed. It was a polar opposite attribute to the red race and the rate of the change was therefore extremely slow.

She felt a constant shortness of breath, as if she was at a place with almost no air. Yeorum had to consciously breathe in and out.

The deeper she went, the quieter it became.

The red race had a better ear, even more so than other races. Usually, she kept her ears semi-closed so that she could hear like a normal superhuman but in situations like this, her ears would be as wide-open as possible.

She was able to hear Yu Jitae and Gyeoul's conversation after entering the water but now that she was about 50 metres deep, their voices sounded extremely soft like a very quiet whisper.

– … haimibing bibii?

– … byuutee… burburbuuguihi…

Their voices were so soft that she couldn't really tell what they were talking about.

– Gi, hil, hil, hil

Still, she could tell what this was.

Stupid Gyeoul must be laughing or something.

That idiot must be crazy happy. Even though her unni is dying in real time…

Judging from how she just didn't stop laughing, it seemed that there was something fun happening above water.

She's probably laughing at some stupid random fish or a shell.

How happy must her life be? She laughs with a boring ass guy like Yu Jitae, so she must be happy staying with anyone.

– Ki, kiii…

Hmm…

But what are they doing that she's laughing so much?

What, did Yu Jitae do a backflip?

Did he invite you to Las Vegas?

Or maybe they're shittalking me?

– Ki, hil, hil, hih

Right. They are shittalking me, those bastards.

Underwater is like a graveyard for red dragons. You trying to pray for my death or something ey?

Do you like it that much? Make sure you don't die you idiot…

…

– Ki, hi, hih

But seriously, what was so funny…?

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[Depth: 100.3m]

The deeper she went, the darker it got.

Underneath was dark from the start and above was always bright. However, things that were relatively close to her were starting to appear very dark. Left, right, front, back – on all sides.

It was as if a circular wall of darkness was slowly approaching her from the sides.

Why was it, she wondered, that she was suddenly reminded of the fact that she was alone?

Even now, she could still feel the gravitational force but her body was simply stuck in place inside the dense, honey-like water.

It'll be even harder to go up.

On the other hand, this was around where she could no longer hear the voices of Yu Jitae and Gyeoul. Did they stop talking? Maybe, but they might still be talking to each other.

It was then.

"Uht!"

Bubble…!

At that moment, her diaphragms contracted and she almost unconsciously breathed in water.

Yeorum placed her hands over her nose and her mouth.

Her body right now was similar to a human body. If she were to drink this water with a 'ridiculously dense mana of water attribute', it would cause significant harm to her body. Her polymorph spell might even be cancelled.

Polymorph being cancelled without even reaching 200 metres?

She would be better off dead than swallowing all that shame.

'Calm down. Calm down…'

Stopping the dive, she shrunk her body. Lowering the loss of mana, she soothed her startled organs – her body wasn't literally startled and it was just a matter of her mentality. Fortunately, the stuffiness vanished after enduring it for a bit.

It was all fine.

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[Depth: 151.35m]

The deeper she went, the denser the water became. On top of that, it felt as if millions of small hooks were cutting into her body. Her arms and legs felt even heavier than before.

Her heart felt stifled as if bound by a rope. Normally her heart would contract and expand like a balloon but right now, it was as if there was a rope restricting her heart.

It was painful. It wasn't just normal pain and was one that made her feel extremely bizarre.

She wasn't used to this type of pain.

If she were instead being smacked around by a monster, it would be possible to endure through the pain but it was her first time feeling this type of stifling sensation, and was thus very difficult to withstand.

Even though she wasn't even half-way finished, she felt a small urge to run away.

What her mind suddenly thought of was Gyeoul who would probably be still giggling and laughing.

'That stupid Yu Gyeoul…'

Let's give her a flick to the forehead after going up.

Unexpectedly, thinking of such things helped her ventilate the discomfort out of her mind.

However, it lasted less than 5 minutes.

Once again Yeorum felt the stifling sensation in her heart. Added on top were the discomfort from having her breath suppressed, the frustration from not being able to see far ahead, plus the suffocating sense of the darkness drawing closer in. It felt like she was locked up in a small and suffocating room by herself.

All those factors added up harassed her. It was even worse because this didn't feel like training for Yeorum.

'Is there nothing? Is it seriously just painful like this?'

This didn't feel like training for Yeorum.

It was torture.

'Like, what is this thing?'

Usually in games and stuff, don't you get a reward when you are about this deep? Like, sudden air bubbles that you can breathe from or something?

Or find a paddle to use, for example?

Through exercise, she would feel strength being added to her muscles and through fights she earned enlightenments. Since she was here to increase her mana, she at least hoped she would be able to feel mana increasing in her body.

In that case, at least there would be some incentive to help her endure through this torture but this 'dive' simply felt like abusing her body.

'Give me something at least you fucker. I'm not getting motivated at all…' Yeorum swore at the ocean.

However, this Tranquil Sea wasn't an articulately crafted training area like those in games. This was but a portion of mother nature and she wasn't the protagonist of a story either. Mother nature was brutally indifferent to the baby dragon.

Yeorum knew that as well.

Maybe it would feel better to put the blame on one specific person?

She thought of a bad guy.

'Dick Jitae you son of a bitch…'

She remembered what happened a few minutes ago – he had shoved her head back into the water.

Like, so what if I breathe and start again; is the world gonna end or something? Did I ask for your life? I was just trying to go up and get a deep breath before coming back in so why would he stop me like that…

He didn't just stop her either and even shoved her underwater.

Back then, she was extremely shocked.

She was so shocked that she accidentally snorted water in through her nose and coughed it back out.

And what was with those condescending eyes?

Do I look that pathetic to you?

Did you think I was scared?

I was just, trying to do one small prep before coming back in…

She started to actually feel disheartened after extensively pondering on it. The reason she started blaming him was to freshen her mind and yet it ended up agitating her emotions.

…What's wrong with me all of a sudden.

She was already more than 150 metres deep.

For these last few minutes, she consciously avoided looking around her. The things resembling black walls were a lot closer to her, making it feel like someone had locked her up in a small room by herself, so she consciously focused on what was underneath. That must have been the reason she felt stressed out.

For fuck's sake…

Yeorum shook the useless thoughts away from her head. It was a retarded thought process.

She could now trust Yu Jitae.

There was no way he would find her pathetic nor would he shove her underwater for no reason. There must be a reason he did it…

At the very least, Yeorum was able to forget the pain for a bit while thinking about other things, but she still had trouble breathing. Her diaphragm contracted by itself although she wasn't breathing. It was the same thing as before on repeat.

She had a very short yet mind-breakingly strong urge to run away.

But fortunately, the stifling feeling disappeared after some time, and she found the courage to continue a little bit more.

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Yeorum continued diving deeper in as 10 more minutes, long enough to feel like an hour, went by.

The ground that had appeared so far off was finally before her eyes.

[Depth: 203.9m] [Time: 06:11 (pm)]

[Mana Density: 7.9Ma/p] [↑]

At last, her white feet landed on the wide and flat 'field'.