The rabbit tasted… fleshy and overcooked. My new teeth, blunt, struggled with the meat. In my tank, my food was dissolving flakes. This was a chore. I kinda miss nibbling.
My party, their names were Ernst (the tank), Katze (the apothecary), and Marin (a mage) watched me eat.
"Does the meal please you?" Katze asked "I applied some healing potion to help you recover."
I swallowed a particularly chewy bite. "It's… uhm… moist and wet," I managed. It was the best compliment I could give for something that wasn't floating in water.
"He says it's wet!" she whispered to Ernst, her eyes shining. "That means it's juicy, right? Or is it too wet?" her face fell.
Ernst nodded, stroking his chin. "A hunter of his level must see the world on another level. He probably has some secret taste buds that detect the elements in food or something."
I didn't correct them. My mind was currently occupied by the dryness of my eyeballs. Blinking was an unpleasant necessity.
[ Status Alert: Dehydration Risk: +2% ]
That blue screen helpfully informed me. I stared at the water Marin had offered me earlier. Sucking liquid from a container felt weird. In my past life, water came into me naturally. Now, it was a effort. A chore.
"I need a bath," I announced, the words feeling strange in my mouth. "A large one. Immediately."
My party brought me to the inn in the town. It smelled of stale ale, damp wool, and drunkards. But it had a bathhouse.
I got rid of my school, sorry my party, with a wave of my hand, a gesture they interpreted as a dismissal but was really just me trying to shoo them away like the pesky cat from my old life.
The bath was a wooden tub, large enough for one SSS rank hunter. I didn't wait for it to finish filling it. The moment there was enough water to submerge myself, I got in.
The sensation was… perfect.
It wasn't the perfectly pH-balanced, filtered water of my tank, but it was close enough. I sank to the bottom, holding my breath with a surprising lung capacity. I opened my eyes underwater, another new, stinging sensation, but bearable, and stared at the grainy wooden wall of the tub. Home. This was the closest I had felt to home since being reincarnated.
I let out some bubbles. It was a tight fit. My shoulders bumped the sides. The experience was cramped and deeply comforting. It was my tank. A tank of one's own.
A memory, sharp and clear, surfaced from my fish-brain: the feeling of absolute safety that came from being surrounded on all sides. The world outside the glass was a world of giants and shadows, but inside, the rules were simple. The water was constant. The gravel was steady. The castle was… castle-shaped. I loved my tank.
Here, in this wooden tub, I could almost pretend.
[ Skill: 'Liquid Peace' has reached Level 2. ]
[ HP and MP regeneration increased by 5% while submerged in liquid. ]
I ignored the screen. I didn't need somebody to tell me the benefits of being in water. It was a fundamental truth of my being, past and present. Except now, with the gaps in the memory of whoever I reincarnated into, I could feel that they enjoyed baths too.
My peace was interrupted by a commotion from the inn's common room. Raised voices. The sound of a table flipping. Ernst's gruff tone was among them, a low growl of warning.
I got out with a sigh, water sloshing over the sides. The dryness immediately began to creep itself on my skin. Another chore.
Wrapping a towel around my waist, a weird fluffy thing, I padded out of the bathhouse and into the common room.
A new group of hunters, their armor flashier and shinier than my party's, had gathered. Their leader, a man with a chin so sharp it kinda looked like a triangle, was sneering at Marin.
"—heard you idiots got lucky with a High Troll," the sharp-chinned man was saying. "Don't think it elevates your ragtag band of D-Listers. That dungeon tomorrow is A-Rank. You'd just be in the way."
"We have a new hunter with us, Valen," Ernst growled, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
Valen barked a laugh. "The 'Flopping Sovereign'? Is that his title? Sounds like a fish out of water. Probably just some B-Ranker.."
A bit of recognition, and something like anger, went through me. He was closer to the truth than he could possibly imagine.
All eyes turned to me. Standing there, dripping on the floorboards, wearing only a towel, I did not look like a hunter. I looked like some dude who had just been rudely interrupted during a very important soak. The maids in the back blushed. One fainted.
Valen's sneer deepened. "This is your savior? He doesn't look so tough."
My human brain, still syncing with my fish instincts, thought about something. This Valen was the grumpy cat. He was pressing his face against the glass of my new, fragile peace. My territory was being challenged.
I didn't feel anger. I needed him to go away.
I pointed a finger at the tankard in his hand.
[ Basic Skill: Abyssal Aqua Cutter has been activated. ]
There was no big flashy power. Just a faint zip sound. The top third of his tankard, a perfect horizontal slice, slid off and hit the floor, spilling cheap ale all over his polished boots.
The room fell silent. The only sound was the steady drip… drip… drip… from my hair onto the floor.
Valen stared at his drink, then at me, his face pale. The precision was what terrified them. I didn't aim for his head. I had aimed for his drink. The implication was clear: if I could do that to his drink, I could do it to his neck, or any specific limb I chose.
I looked at him, my expression pure boredom. "You're interrupting my bath," I said, my voice flat. "Stop it."
I turned and walked back towards the bathhouse, leaving a trail of wet footprints and stunned silence in my wake. As I reached the door, I paused and looked back at the innkeeper.
"More hot water," I said. "And… do you have any shrimp?"