The Supermarket System

Chapter 78: 78. Ocean and seafood

"It turns out we’re pretty close to the ocean, huh?" Kai remarked as he looked at the green map of the continent on his system’s screen.

Kai, who always kept his area detection magic active, spotted several sea monsters nearby. It turned out that about four hundred meters away, there was a beach inhabited only by monsters.

"Would you like to go to the sea, young master?" asked Jo, who was driving the horse-drawn carriage. At that moment, Kai was sitting up front with Jo.

That afternoon, they were already nearing the Knightley region.

A distance of five kilometers—which would be close on earth—felt incredibly far when traveled by horse-drawn carriage on Ardhez.

"I don’t know, Jo. I’m just thinking about how great it would be if we could catch some cuttlefish and big shrimp, then cook them in a spicy broth... eating them with noodles sounds delicious. We could also grill them and slather them with spicy sauce."

Jessica, who was inside the carriage, heard Kaileon’s words and became interested as well. She pulled back the curtain so she could see Kaileon and Jo up front.

"I want to eat that too, Kai. How about you go catch some?" Jessica asked.

"To catch them, I’d have to deal with bears, tigers, lions, and huge black snakes sleeping in caves..." Kai replied.

"Isn’t that a piece of cake for you? You could sell all that to the adventurers’ guild or the nobles, or you could just eat it."

Kai turned to Jessica and gave her an annoyed look. "Are you crazy? I have to conserve my magic energy because I also have to fight monsters out at sea."

"I’m not sure you need that much magic energy, since you always defeat Hamlour monsters without even putting up a fight. Besides, you have Jo—"

"No!" Kai immediately rejected Jessica’s suggestion, turned back to face forward, and continued.

"Jo is precious; I don’t want to use him out just because of your silly whim."

Hearing Kai’s words, Jo let a smile play on his lips. His annoyance at Kai having only praised Ricky’s painting earlier vanished instantly—simply because Kai considered him so valuable.

"You don’t have to fight them, Kai. I can go with you and tell those monsters to let us go, or we can use the new spell I learned from Nagisha—one that puts the monsters to sleep for about one to two hours," said Angeline.

Kai turned his gaze back to the small window behind him.

"You can really use magic like that—oh, what about your magic energy when you use it? Will it drain a lot of magic energy?" Kai asked.

"If it’s just one or two hours, it’s still within a safe limit."

"In that case, let’s just rest here. I’m really curious about Angeline’s new magic," Kai said.

Kai thought that, given Nagisha’s personality, she’d only invited Angeline to play around in the mountains. But it turned out they were actually learning magic.

Speaking of Nagisha, she should have come to meet Kai by now. But it seemed the water dragon had already settled comfortably in Alex’s territory.

They set up camp again at the edge of the forest, but this time near a large river. The view of the beautiful mountains and the quiet forests.

The villagers’ homes would come into view about six hundred meters ahead. Just beyond that lay the small town of Knightley.

"Isn’t this river beautiful? There are so many wildflowers growing right along the riverbank—oh, what kind of plant is that?" Jessica pointed to a cluster of plants she’d almost never seen before.

They were ferns.

"There are so many of those here. Are they edible? I don’t think they’re edible," said Ricky.

Kai, curious about what the two were talking about, finally looked at what they were arguing over.

"You mean ferns? They’re edible, you know. Do you guys want to eat them? We just need to pick the young ones," said Kai, who had already walked over to the clump of ferns and picked a young one.

"Wow, they’re kind of cute, aren’t they? Why do we only need the young ones?" asked Angeline, who was crouching next to Kai.

"Because the older ones are tough and inedible. I really love ferns cooked in coconut milk sauce—we can make that later to go with our seafood," said Kai.

"Are you really going to the ocean, young master?" asked Peoni.

Kai nodded, then handed the young fern he’d just picked to Peoni.

"Of course! So, help me pick as many young ferns as possible, okay... just look at the one I just picked as an example. Don’t pick the ones that are too old. I’ll go with Angeline and Jo; the rest of you stay here, okay? I’ll come right away if you’re in danger because I always keep my detection magic active."

With that, Kai set off with Jo and Angeline. To make the journey faster, Jo transformed into a huge wolf—so huge that Kai and Angeline could ride on its back.

Since Kai and Angeline were so small, Jo didn’t even feel a thing as he ran deep into the forest, heading toward the ocean ahead.

Just as Kai had said earlier, there were many monsters all around them.

Before the monsters could go on a rampage because of the mischievous demon prince’s antics, Angeline had already put them all to sleep. This also served as good practice for Angeline.

When they finally reached the beach, they saw beautiful white sand, with large coral rocks along the water’s edge adorning the shore.

"I’m going to dive and catch shrimp, lobster, squid, or whatever I can catch. So you guys stay here, or you can also pick the young coconuts up there," said Kai, before diving in to look for ingredients to cook for their dinner.

"How are we supposed to pick the coconuts, Jo— Oh! Oh my gosh!"

Angeline almost screamed when Jo bent a coconut tree over with both hands. Then he shook the tree, and all the coconuts simply fell to the ground.

"I don’t know which ones are young and which are old, and I think this is my first time at the beach, princess," said Jo.

Angeline chuckled at Jo’s innocent remark.

"Is it because you’ve always been deep in the forest?" Angeline asked.

Jo nodded, "That’s right. I’ve read books about sea monsters, but this is the first time I’ve seen one in person."

Angeline stopped smiling and looked in the direction Jo was staring.

There, atop the large coral rocks scattered along the beach, she could see an unusual creature.

"Jo, what is that? Should we call Kai?" whispered Angeline. She moved closer to Jo and hid her small body behind Jo’s large frame, which had already shifted into its human form.

"I don’t think it’s necessary, princess. The young master will come on his own if he feels they’re a threat to us. Besides, those are sea sirens. They look like mermaids, but they’re more dangerous than mermaids. They use their voices to attract the attention of their prey, and they’re quite fierce in battle—especially since they possess strength equivalent to Level B. But if they attack together, their combined power can reach Level S. They only attack when they’re hungry, my lady. Their favorite food is the kraken. "That’s what I learned about them from a book. Seeing them in person makes me feel weird," said Jo, who remained fixated on the three sea sirens about twenty meters away from the two of them.

"Jo! They’re walking this way! Should I put them to sleep too?" asked Angeline, who couldn’t shake her fear even though Jo had explained who the three figures approaching them were.

At first, they had dark, menacing-looking fish tails, with upper bodies resembling humans—though not exactly. They had sharp teeth, barely visible noses, and their ears were oddly shaped.

However, as they approached Jo and Angeline, their forms shifted to resemble ordinary humans. Their skin had a scaly appearance, their teeth were human-like, and their ears were human-like as well. Although their skin color was too pale to be compared to that of humans.

The three sea sirens weren’t wearing anything on their bodies; only long, curly, and thick hair covered part of their private areas.

"Don’t worry, beautiful lady, we just want to trade our goods for those coconuts, because we don’t know how to climb. And if you have any meat to eat, we’ll give you this in exchange."

One of them stepped forward to show her something sparkling.

Angeline recognized the sparkling object—it was a diamond.

"What’s going on here?"

Kai rushed over, staring suspiciously at the three figures who were strangers to him.

"They’re sea sirens, young master... They said they want to trade their diamonds for the food and coconuts I gathered," said Jo.

Seeing Kai and his intimidating glare, the three sea sirens slowly backed away.

"Is it true that you only want food and coconuts? Or is that just one of your cunning tricks? I rushed over here because I suddenly saw my fiancée and my friend in danger. I know you’re experts at deceiving your prey..."

Kai drew his mithril dagger, but before he could threaten the three sea sirens, they suddenly ran off and plunged into the sea.

"Are they scared?" Angeline muttered, unable to believe what she was seeing.

"I think it’s because of this black pearl bracelet—they possess dark magic," Kai said.

Suddenly, Jo knelt before Kaileon and said,

"Please forgive me, young master!"

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