As Long as She Was Pretty, Even Her Bathwater Smelled Sweet

"Ruben, food, food! If you don't come over here, I can only eat frogs. They really don't taste very good."

Rather than saying Aqua was stupid, it was more accurate to say that she simply thought differently from normal people. Now she was tugging on Ruben's hand again, demanding to be fed, while Mayuna shuddered at the image of eating frogs that had formed in her mind.

"Mm."

Ruben did not make things difficult for her. He handed her the box he used to store fish food. The feed had been mixed according to Earth's golden ratio, and no fish could resist its scent. In conclusion, Aqua counted as a fish too.

"So does that make you this mermaid's owner?"

"It's just a mutually beneficial relationship. I take care of her normally, and she makes sure the water quality in this lake stays good."

Ruben answered Mayuna's question simply, then baited his fishing rod and continued fishing.

"I see."

Mayuna nodded in understanding. She had just been wondering whether the lake's water had something to do with the mermaid. The sea folk were beloved children of the Water God; no one was more suited to water magic than they were.

"Ruben, when are you finally going to mate with me?"

After finishing the fish food, Aqua patted her stomach, then jumped into the lake and dove down. Before long, she surfaced holding a pink egg in both hands and spoke to Ruben.

"Let me study the egg first."

Ruben was clearly more interested in the egg than fishing. He reached out to grab Aqua, but she nimbly dodged him.

"No. Only the father of a mermaid's child can touch her egg, unless you agree to it."

"As I recall, mermaids mate by..."

"You just shoot your essence onto it. It's very simple, right? So, Ruben, just do it yourself here and..."

Aqua said it innocently. From the look of things, she had no intention of using her beautiful body to do anything for Ruben. She was simply planning to sit back and watch.

"How shameless!"

Mayuna's face reddened slightly as she cut Aqua off. How could Aqua tell Ruben to do something like that in broad daylight? What did she take Mayuna for?

"What? Aren't you humans even more shameless when it comes to reproduction? Why are you saying that about me?"

"I... Anyway, Ruben, let me tell you this: mermaids have a terrible reputation. They can mate with any species, and their entire race is synonymous with laziness. After handing their children over to the father to raise, the mothers disappear. If the father refuses to raise the child, the entire mermaid race will hunt him down. Don't go looking for trouble."

Mayuna choked up for a moment, unsure how to respond. As an adult, of course she knew how humans reproduced, and Aqua was not wrong. But Mayuna did not like reasoning things out, so she condemned the entire mermaid race in one stroke.

"What's wrong with you? Can you even find a second man on this Mountain? You're cutting off my descendants!"

Aqua furiously formed a water arrow with water magic and shot it at Mayuna. She had clearly done nothing, yet this woman kept targeting her.

"Who cares about you? You can't fulfill a wife's duties anyway. Isn't this just one-sided fraud?"

Mayuna caught the water arrow between two fingers and tossed it back, hitting Aqua in the head hard enough to make tears spill from her eyes.

"You're wrong about that. Although the lower half of their bodies is built differently from humans, I guarantee mermaids have no fewer ways to play than humans do. Hehahahaha."

Dragon opened his heterochromatic eye and let out a twisted laugh. The people of this world were still too young, thinking mermaids could not do anything just because they lacked human lower bodies. Dragon, who possessed knowledge from another world, did not see it that way.

"I'm more curious why mermaids have such an ecology. It's very unscientific. As for children, I have no plans to become a father yet."

As Mayuna had said, mermaids could mate with any species except plants. Reproductive isolation was probably nothing more than a paradox here. Subjects, chromosome counts, none of that existed. As long as a mermaid's egg came into contact with a male's inherited chromosomes, it would automatically become fertilized, and the offspring would always be a female mermaid. That was why the mermaid race had no males. If Earth's biologists learned of this, they would probably climb out of their coffins to investigate.

That said, ordinary mermaids generally only mated with sea folk. After all, they could not remain out of water for long. Once other sea folk painstakingly raised their daughters, the mermaids would return to their own tribes and search for their next victims. Looking at it that way, there really was something wrong with this race.

While the human and the fish were locked in a standoff, Ruben's fishing rod finally moved. With a light pull, he hooked the soft flesh of the fish's mouth. After tugging a few times, he hauled a huge fish from the lake. It landed on the shore and flopped about endlessly.

"What a huge fish."

Mayuna had not expected the fish Ruben caught to be so large. Standing upright, it was probably half her height. Fish that big were rare in inland regions.

"Hamlet!"

"?"

Hearing Aqua's shout, the two of them turned toward her at the same time, and the mermaid began explaining.

"That's the fish's name. I was bored, so I named every fish here. Hamlet is the sole survivor of five generations. When its parents laid their eggs, another fish ate all of them except this one. It's so pitiful. For cooking, I recommend braising it in soy sauce. Steaming it would be good too."

Aqua's first few sentences were fine, and Mayuna had almost started to feel sorry for the fish. But then things took a strange turn. Aqua drooled as she offered her suggestions. Mayuna felt that if she complained now, she would lose to this idiot fish, so she forcefully suppressed the urge.

"Mayuna, carry the fish."

"What did you say?"

"Did you think I brought you here just to look around? The fish here grow huge because of the water quality, and it'll take quite a bit of effort to carry it back. Consider this the first step of your weight loss."

"You want me—the one at the very pinnacle of the Holy Continent, the God of Magic, an unparalleled beauty—to carry a fish?"

Mayuna was so angry that she wanted to crack Ruben's head open and see what was inside. No matter how she looked at it, carrying fish was completely beneath her, wasn't it?

"You'll never have cake again."

"Ugh..."

That day, Mayuna, the strongest and most vicious God of Magic, was defeated by a single sentence from Ruben. Reluctantly, she picked up the heavy Hamlet and set off on the journey home under Aqua's watchful gaze.

"Huff... huff... I'm dying. I'm covered in sweat, and I stink like fish. I can't go on living like this..."

After tossing Hamlet into Ruben's kitchen, Mayuna finally could not bear it any longer and collapsed to her knees. She was drenched in sweat and reeked of fish. There was not the slightest trace of the God of Magic's former grandeur left as she silently cursed that sadistic Ruben.

"The bathwater is ready."

Ruben patted Mayuna's back to help her catch her breath. He knew mages were all like this, but wasn't her stamina a little too poor?

"Hey, Ruben."

"Mm?"

"I don't know why that mermaid lied, but Aqua is the name of the Water Goddess. She is the faith of all sea folk. No sea folk would dare give that name to their descendants."

"It's fine. Everyone has their own secrets."

"That's true."

Mayuna was not trying to maliciously drive a wedge between them. She simply felt it was necessary to tell Ruben, so he would not be tricked by Aqua later. In any case, Ruben's response was exactly what she expected. He was just that naïve.

"I've come back to life. As expected, baths really are comfortable. Bathing..."

Mayuna lay in the bath and moaned comfortably. Closing her eyes, she recalled the day's events, a faint smile curling her lips. No one would have thought that she would one day wrestle with a fish until she was drenched in sweat. Still, it had been a pretty good experience. Yet she felt as though she had forgotten something. Mayuna stared at the bathwater and fell into thought.

"Ruben!!!"

Mayuna ran out of the bathroom without even putting on clothes, wrapped only in a white bath towel. But she had no mind to feel embarrassed now. She merely grabbed Ruben's clothes and shouted at him.

"What is it?"

"You said Aqua is responsible for purifying all the water we use, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then where does she live?"

"...The water quality meets drinking standards."

Ruben naturally understood what Mayuna meant, but this water was more than ten times cleaner than Earth's drinking water. There was no reason not to drink it, as long as one could accept it mentally.

"Where do mermaids relieve themselves?"

"The water contains abundant minerals. It's extremely beneficial to the human body."

Ruben pretended to admire the scenery around him, still refusing to answer Mayuna's question directly.

"Ugh, blegh!!"

After hearing that, Mayuna covered her mouth and ran into the toilet. From that day onward, every drop of water in Ruben's home was supplied solely by Mayuna.