Desharow MermanChapter 50

Translator: Cheonsa

Editor: pigeon 7CRBa5


Chapter 50

  I vaguely felt an intense and peculiar feeling approaching my legs. It felt both itchy and painful, as if my legs were corroding under thousands of crawling ants. Yet at the same time, it felt similar to having new skin and flesh growing onto my bones

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        I subconsciously wanted to reach out and touch them, but both of my arms were firmly pressed against the top of my head by a pair of moist, powerful webbed claws, along with a wet, soft object licking around my neck. Soon enough, I felt a penetrating pain behind my ears and around my fingers. It was like thorns were forcibly breaking through my skin or having a parasitic virus struggling its way in.

  From the pain, I let out a cry from my throat and opened my heavy eyelids.  tDdcHU

  Over the top of my head, the full moon was so close that it looked like it was within an arm’s reach. Under the water’s luminescence, it looked like a smashed, shattered glass marble. This was because my focal length was in disorder, and my vision was too scattered with my head feeling too heavy. I felt extremely dizzy, nearly to the point of vomiting. I could see that the shadow which was pressing me down was Agares, and when I opened my mouth to call him, nothing came out. As the itching began to get more and more intense, it forced me to look down—— 

  Oh God, what did I just see? 

 My legs were densely covered with silvery, gray scales which, at first glance, looked like a fish tail. However, my two legs were still there, but there were two additional fan-shaped webbed films that sprouted on my feet, hanging in the water with its long length. 

 I anxiously lifted my eyes to look at Agares, but before I could see his exact expression, I fainted once again.

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  Darkness swept in from all sides, as if there was a thick fog all around. In an instant, everything disappeared: no moonlight, no sea and no Agares. The pain was gone, and my body seemed to be sinking deeper into the sea water, yet I was aware that I was caught up in a nightmare.

  I strived to turn around and swim upwards, but I felt a strong grip on my feet, dragging me down, down, down…

  Suddenly, while my entire body was sinking down, a flash of light instantly flitted before my eyes. 

  I found myself not knowing why I was in a serene, dark glass corridor. A large fish and a translucent jellyfish floated past me, brushing through mottled traces of water and shadows. They appeared so close to the point that they could be touched with just a stretch of an arm, making them look more real compared to seeing them through a transparent glass wall like before.  4UEb1R

  I faintly felt something was wrong and reached my hand out in perplexity, only to come across a layer of glass.

  But it was not between me and the fish but between me and the corridor. I was like a dolphin trapped in a large aquarium tank used for spectating.  

  Hey! Hey, what’s going on! 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

   P sfiifv bea, yea bcis atf ufcaif rbecv bo atf oibklcu kjafg jcrkfgfv yjmx ab wf. xQO3ET

  Damn it, where am I? 

  P qertfv nlubgberis jujlcra atf agjcrqjgfca yjgglfg atja rfqjgjafv wf jkjs ogbw atf bearlvf kbgiv, yea P ofia lar gfrlilfcmf. Mffilcu rbwfktja oijyyfgujrafv, P aegcfv ab ibbx jgbecv ws reggbecvlcur, jcv, revvfcis, atgbeut atf gfoifmalbc bo atf uijrr, P mjeuta j uilwqrf bo j qjlg bo vjgx jcv uibbws qeqlir.

  It’s Agares! Through my instinctive tendency, I leaned close to the glass wall. However, what I saw before my eyes left me utterly dumbfounded. 

  Agares wore a black trench coat. The long fishtail on his lower body had shockingly  vanished without a trace, replaced with a pair of slender legs in leather pants. Through the reflection in the glass, I saw my appearance instantly. y7mE0d

  My own legs were wrapped around in a long, silver-gray fishtail, with the fan-shaped caudal fins slowly following along with the flowing current, moving up and down.  

  I looked at Agares in disbelief while he was looking at me deeply with a creased eyebrow. His hands were pressed against the glass, seemingly trying to touch me, but it remained futile. His fingers were white from the pressure, and his blood vessels were visibly bulging. Agares then slowly fisted his hand and slammed it severely against the glass. 

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  With a loud sounding bang, several cracks appeared and spread out. When the glass shattered, the world in front of me returned to the darkness instantly.

  I tried my best to reach out. I spread my fingers, but I only caught open air.  YmUIoO

The sudden feeling of panic caused me to open my eyes at once, and, when awareness returned to my body, I immediately sat up and looked at my legs.

  Fortunately, there was nothing. 

  My legs did not turn into a fishtail. They were still perfectly normal and healthy, back to their original smooth, sleek layers of skin and were not made out of layers of fish scales. Still feeling susceptible, I raised my hand again. Only after confirming that there wasn’t a thin, webbed membrane between my fingers, was I able to exhale in relief. With an overflowing amount of cold sweat, I touched my legs up and down then emotionally gave my knee a kiss, a patient whose leg was almost amputated.

  Thank goodness, my body didn’t undergo a strange transformation after all.  EtcoVf

  So,what exactly happened with everything before….

  I felt my emotions and my stream of consciousness all in utter chaos while carefully recalling those real, yet illusionary, like scenes. Looking around, I found myself back in Agares’s nest. 

  Maybe I had never left here and had only fallen into an illusionary dream ever since the strange merfolk ceremony?  I rubbed against my forehead, still not feeling so sure. The pleasure and excitement I felt when Agares took me jumping in the sea and my body’s painful growth just felt so real. They all mix into a conflicting feeling that left a strong aftertaste in my limbs. 

  If it all really had happened, then there must been some sort of trace left, otherwise, there was something really wrong with my brain.  uwedi6

  Thinking about it, I raised my hand subconsciously and touched the back of my ear. My entire body stiffened—

  There was a small crack in the back of the earlobe, even some water remained. This immediately reminded me of the feeling of sea water flowing from here when I was brought into the sea by Agares. This evidence proved that those strange transformations actually have taken place in my body. The existence of these gills suddenly shattered my wishful thinking completely.

  From the shock, a huge amount of pressure on my nerves left me feeling suffocated. I took a few deep breaths, hugged my head, and rubbed my temples violently to prevent myself from fainting again after concluding this incredulous fact; it was all in an attempt to force myself to think calmly. 

  That was right, my body was showing signs of merfolk’s traits. A few moments ago, I had webbed claws, legs that were covered in fish scales, and gills that had grown behind my ears (if they really were gills at all). Plus, I was able to freely breathe in the water. In biological terms, my body had changed, and, in other words, mutations had occurred in my genes.  olpv8N

  My mind was buzzing with thoughts. I kept thinking back towards a segment in the “Gene Biology” study: 

          Gene mutation is the fundamental source of biological variation. There are many factors that can cause genetic mutation, which can be grouped into three basic categories. One is a    physical factor: X-rays, lasers, etc. The other is a chemical factor, which refers to substances that can interact with DNA molecules to change the natural properties of the gene: Nitrous acid, base analogs, etc. The third category is a biological factor: including viruses and certain bacteria.

  At the moment, it could only be the third category!

  It must have been caused by Agares! Through sexual assaults, he had injected merfolk’s DNA into my body. Their gene cells must have had an extremely aggressive and corrosive characteristic. Like viruses and bacteria, they probably controlled, changed and recombined my chromosomes—perhaps, it was their structure, or their sheer amount—but no matter what the hell it was able to do, those terrible, strange things had caused the death of a portion of my cells. Mine were probably replaced by newborn assimilated cells…  kX6Ysi

  The first change…

  So, that meant there was going to be a second, a third, and Nth time! The end result will be the merfolk gene’s… assimilation!

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  No, no, no, no! Fuck! 

  I stood up and paced around the cave a couple of times. My hand brushed through my hair… each strand laced heavy with sweat.  u w7iz

  Dammit, what am I still thinking about these for!? I shouldn’t have thought about these theories at all. Even if I were to write the world’s most amazing thesis, it practically held no meaning if I, myself, was the rotten mutated specimen here. I can’t even save myself, the variant sample!  

  I don’t want to be a merman and stay on this island forever. I still want to go back to school and be able to lead a good life with my parents! 

  Calm down. Just calm down, Desharow! 

  The only way to stop the mutation was to inject a serum that could overpower and suppress the merfolk’s genes. I must leave here immediately, and the further away, the better. I must avoid all contacts with Agares. After all, I still have a chance to get my body back to normal. Perhaps, Lafarre and the others brought snake venom serums with them. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth a try. EFR9Zr

  With these thoughts, I surprisingly calmed down, for I clearly knew that panicking any further would only be useless. At this time, the only person who could save me was myself.

  So, I carefully leaned forward at the mouth of the cave. Looking into the sea, I did not find Agares nearby. He may have dived into the water to find food or, perhaps, went to deal with the conflicts among the ethnic groups. Apparently, not finding Agares’s trace made me feel more confident in escaping. 

  Turning back towards the small cave inside the nest where Agares’s collection was located, I looted some essential things that were necessary for survival in the jungle. Fortunately, practically everything was available that I could ever need: a somewhat blunt dagger, a telescope, an old-fashioned compass, an iron anchor that could be used as a weapon, an unopened wine bottle that could disinfect wounds, a flint, and some random scattered things.

  I quickly wrapped them into a thin cloth that looked similar to one of those flags on sailboats that was found beneath all the objects. I also tore off several pieces to wear as clothing and had used my belt, the only thing not torn apart my Agares, to tie them together.  LXcer7

  I looked at my “fully armed and equipped” self. I simply resembled the stranded Robinson and his Friday

  Okay now, it was time for the most important step, which was the most crucial one. 

   This step determined whether I could escape this cave or not. 

  I squatted down and plunged my head first into the pithole of water where Agares had led me to sea. After confirming that I could breathe smoothly in the water, I fully jumped in. kTOhdm

  In that split second, I felt a trace of unwillingness in my heart, but it was immediately washed away by the sea water that enveloped around my entire body. Almost by instinct, I practically swam to the depths as fast as I could, like that of a quick, nimble fish shuttling in the sea at an inhuman speed. Then following the light upward, I broke through the water in a flash.

  After wiping off the water droplets on my face, I found that I had come to a low coastal area. Noticing that the dryland was close to me, I quickly climbed up to the shore and pulled out the anchor at my waist. I was on high alert for possible predators on the shore as I went into the jungle.

  I needed to find a higher tree trunk to climb up in order to see where the boat we had parked from before was.

  However, just as I was about to climb a tall tree that was nearby, a low growl was suddenly heard in the distance. My entire body jolted in reaction. I didn’t even need to look back to know that it was Agares coming after me. As a conditioned reflex, I immediately rolled to the ground and crouched low to hide in the small bushes. At the same time, my body was pressed against the wet mud from beneath, giving me a great idea. I grabbed two hand-fulls of mud and wiped it across the sweat glands that produce a natural scent on humans: on my neck, armpits, and also on my underpants.   ygcRLN

  Remembering what Agares told me a while ago had made me realize that at a certain distance, he was using my scent to find my whereabouts. Merfolk’s sense of smell might be more sensitive than that of sharks. Moreover, my smell, especially to him, was stronger. It was precisely like when I smelled his own special fragrance from his body. 

  I crawled around in the shadows. As I watched the coast nervously, I indeed saw a long black shadow rising from the sea and dragging its long tail into the forest, not so far away in the distance. When he turned his head to survey every direction, I obviously knew that the mud played a large role in concealing my scent. He couldn’t find me. 

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  In the distance, an anxious howl passed through the entire jungle, sounding as if it were right next to my ear. With my heart feeling alarmed, I trembled in fear as I covered my mouth, not even daring to breathe.

TBC 2cIvF7


Hello translator here! I am terribly sorry for the late update. My neighborhood unexpectedly had a power outage so I was unable to finish my translation and upload last night since my computer have no signal. Then I had to work the next day and at the same time needed to wait for my editor to be free to edit. I don’t want to upload another unedited chapter! Sorry for all the excuses, i hope you guys understand. Thank you!

Anyway, we are nearly half way through the novel. I want to thank all of you who had supported this novel all the way till now. All secrets and reasons behind Agares’s, Desharow’s, and Sakarol’s actions will be revealed sooner or later. Thank you guys for being patient with the novel and us translators. Thank You!

—Cheonsa

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Translator's Note

Translator's Note

Translator's Note

The novel Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a young and impulsive Englishman that defies his parents’ wishes and takes to the seas seeking adventure. The young Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked and castaway on a remote tropical island for 28 years. He saved an escape prisoner who was about to be eaten by other cannibals. Robinson named that man Friday, and although they were unable to communicate, Friday was Robinson’s most loyal follower.

Leave a Comment

19 comments

  1. Thanks for the chapter!

    Agares’ anxious howl passed through the entire jungle.. aw he must be devastated and frustrated to learned that Desharow escaped again, and now he’s finally panicking

  2. Thanks for this chapter, I want to ask, is it okay, yesterday I read a novel about mermaids too but I forgot the title, maybe someone knows the title can tell me thank you, if I’m not mistaken the MC is human. and mermaid ML (she was made by mermaid genes with human genes and she is a human biological weapon) MC has a very protective sibling because she has lost this MC since childhood, and ML was very funny when she was a child (fish) ah and ML is named a monster by MC, and big thanks for this translation

  3. Desharow didn’t hesitate at all to reject the transformation. Running away on his own at this point in time sounds incredibly dangerous for him, though, especially with the redhaired merman, Sakarol, and his rapist former professor all running around.

    • Yeah, I agree. However in his mind right now, he is just extremely confused and don’t know what to do exactly and thought the best idea is to escape. Hope Our little Desharow will meet up with Lafare soon. 🤣 Thank your for reading and for support.

  4. I admire his spunk. Feeling a little sad for Agares right now though. Also concerned about all the enemies lurking. Whether it’s the team (I wonder if Sakarol knew this would happen) or that red head…be safe Desharow.

    Thanks for the great translation ♥️

  5. Sighs. Our little MC really has been making my head shake for the past few hours ah. He makes the worst decisions ever contrary to his supposedly smart mind but I guess he’s just panicking. How could he not weigh in the pros and cons of his situation? That he’s probably far safer with Agares, that there’s too much danger around for him to be loitering on his own, and that Agares isn’t the one he should be scared of. Haish. I really just want to sigh. I’m getting quite tired of his train of thought that goes against major common sense. But best of luck, Desharow. Be safe. ┐⁠(⁠‘⁠~⁠`⁠;⁠)⁠┌
  6. The mud smearing things reminds me of “predator” movie when Arnold covered himself in the mud to avoid heat sensing predator that was hunting him. 😅😅