Chapter 133: Applause for the Little Mermaid’s Wisdom (See Book Review for Details)

“Everyone of the human race, welcome to the merfolk concert. I shall present you with the most beautiful song of the sea folk.”

Miss Mermaid showed not the slightest awareness that she was a precious and rare species. She opened her arms to the audience and gave them a perfect smile. When she saw Ruby standing right in front of her, her smile grew even brighter.

“Cough, cough, cough!”

The instant Ruby saw Aqua, he nearly choked to death on his own breath. White Feather, standing behind him, considerately patted his back to help him recover.

“A mermaid! That’s a mermaid! How did a member of the sea folk appear here?”

If that was Ruby’s reaction, the other people were even more astonished. The visiting tourists began discussing it among themselves. Many of them were seeing a member of the sea folk for the first time, and the shock was considerable.

“This is Rhine Magic Academy. What’s so strange about it?”

“That can’t be right. Look at the students—they’re all wearing shocked expressions too. They clearly didn’t know merfolk existed.”

“Are you stupid? It’s obviously special effects. A mermaid would die out of water, wouldn’t it? That’s just a student in disguise to make the performance more entertaining.”

Ximei had naturally anticipated that people might become suspicious. This was precisely when the planted stooges had to do their part. Those who had been placed in the crowd beforehand began desperately misleading the tourists around them.

“Oh, so that’s what it is. As expected of students from Rhine Magic Academy—they’re incredible! Even the scales look exactly like the real thing. And there’s a unicorn too!”

Humans were always inclined to blindly trust anything with a great reputation. Before today, they had known nothing about how extraordinary the empire’s finest academy truly was. If the academy had produced a student capable of such a convincing disguise, what was there to find strange about it? Thinking this way, the people were quickly swept along by the crowd and began applauding the female student who had disguised herself so convincingly.

“Enough talk, then. Our first song is about to begin! It is called—The Lost Mermaid!”

Aqua showed no fear at all beneath the gaze of more than a thousand pairs of eyes. After announcing the song with a smile, she began to sing unaccompanied. There were no particularly remarkable musical instruments in this other world. The goblins had made a few, but the academy possessed no instruments of its own.

Yet Aqua’s voice alone was enough to capture everyone’s heart in an instant. As she sang, Aqua was as pure and holy as a goddess. The lyrics seemed to have been improvised on the spot, telling roughly the story of a lost mermaid who wandered into the human world, faced all manner of threats and despair, and was eventually rescued by a kind-hearted human. In the end, she wished to repay him with her very self.

When the song ended, the audience still had not recovered from the lingering resonance of her voice. The entire classroom was utterly silent. It seemed they could still hear the fading notes drifting through the air. Every member of the merfolk was a born singer; even without weaving mind-control magic into their voices, they could sing the most beautiful songs in the world.

“You certainly have quite a way with women.”

Qianye was the first to recover. She jabbed Ruby mischievously in the waist, then added when she saw his puzzled expression, “That mermaid kept looking at you the entire time she was singing. How fortunate for you.”

“Wa-ha-ha-ha! You were captivated by my singing, weren’t you? Humans are such easy creatures to win over. I’ll sing another one right away!”

Aqua gave the audience no time to savor the performance. The moment she finished singing, she burst into hearty laughter. The goddess-like bearing she had displayed during the song vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a vague sense of regret.

“What an idiot.”

Ruby helplessly rose from his seat and walked onto the stage under the gaze of the entire audience. Dragon understood what he intended to do without a word and quickly transformed into a piano, landing on the floor.

It was not as though Ruby had been moved by Aqua. He merely wanted to add a little embellishment to a voice that could be called a work of art. It was a shame for such singing to go without accompaniment.

The audience recognized Ruby, but they did not recognize the pitch-black table that had appeared on the stage. However, the moment Ruby placed his hands on the keys, they understood what it was. Beautiful music unlike anything they had ever heard before flowed into their ears.

Aqua began singing a lively song in time with the music. Though it was their first time performing together, the two were as perfectly attuned as old friends who had known each other for years. The music flowed like drifting clouds and running water; the singing was like a nightingale heralding spring. Every listener became a captive of their two souls.

“Thank you all for coming. Today’s concert ends here.”

An hour later, Ruby—whose fingers were exhausted from playing the piano—rose to his feet and bowed to the audience, bringing the unexpected performance to an end.

“What? It’s over? No, keep singing!”

“That’s right! I’ll die if I can’t hear music and singing like that again!”

The audience erupted into an uproar. When had they ever heard singing so beautiful? The nobles who knew something about music, meanwhile, fixed their eyes on Ruby. They understood that the music produced by that table was even more valuable. Such a melody was simply beyond the ability of any human musician to perform.

Ruby had not expected his collaboration with Aqua to nearly incite a riot. As the audience began advancing toward the stage, he wasted no time. He mounted Red Bean, smashed through a window, and fled.

In the end, the other teachers had to step in and calm the disturbance.

“You two! Explain yourselves this instant!”

Behind the teaching building, Ruby’s face was dark as he gripped Ximei’s ear in one hand and Aqua’s ear in the other.

The accompaniment had been provided, yes, but he had not forgotten that the entire affair had been carried out behind his back.

“I just wanted Ruby to care about me more,” Aqua whined, clinging tightly to him. “So you wouldn’t think I was good for nothing but causing trouble.”

“Tell me. What did you give her in return?”

With a cold expression, Ruby lifted Aqua by her fin-tipped ear and pulled her away from him. At the same time, he increased the pressure of his other hand, punishing the classmate who would stop at nothing to make money.

“A month’s supply of alcohol... and one packet of salted-fish-flavored spicy strips.”

Ximei lowered his head obediently. He would do whatever Ruby told him. Whether Ruby wanted to kill him or carve him up, he had no complaints. The money was already safely in his pocket, after all.

“And you, Red Bean? How did you get involved in this mess too?”

Ruby poked Red Bean on the head. He knew that Aqua loved drinking, and that she became completely unruly once drunk, which was why he generally refused to let her have any alcohol. He had never imagined that she would form an alliance with Ximei on her own. Perhaps living in the human world for so long had actually made her cleverer.

“I can’t walk, can I? And I don’t want anyone except you carrying me, so I asked Red Bean to help.”

“Red Bean isn’t nearly as kind as you claim. What did you promise it?”

“A month of... bath scrubbing.”

At the mention of Red Bean, Aqua’s sorrow welled up from the depths of her heart. As a noble mermaid, she was actually going to scrub a magical beast’s body. If her fellow merfolk found out, they would probably laugh themselves to death. Still, Red Bean had only agreed because it did not want Ruby to be overworked, and so Aqua had reluctantly accepted.

In any case, the mermaid concert had come to a successful conclusion. As for how many aftereffects it would leave behind, that was something to be dealt with later.

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P.S. Please favorite, recommend, and vote with your monthly ticket. I still owe four bonus chapters.

P.S. If you are interested, you can listen to Aqua’s voice actress, Sora Amamiya, sing “My Ondo.” Your intelligence will drop in a straight line after listening to it. OvO

P.S. Dear readers, could we perhaps discuss the amount of your tips? What matters most is the sentiment behind them, so even a little less would be fine. Could you let me add one extra chapter every two weeks or so? A steady stream lasts longer! And if you continue supporting official subscriptions, I will add more bonus chapters as well!