Tamed?
Tamed?
When she had first started 'teaching' Nadia how to speak, Evelyn was driven mostly by desperation.
After all, she had no other way out of her situation, and could only choose to believe that she would be able to win over this primordial creature using her 'Calamity' skill, and somehow escape from both the figurative and literal jaws of death.
Eventually, however, she realized that Nadia was really just like a child, and while her goal for 'taming' her remained, her 'tutoring' actually became earnest.
Aside from teaching her how to speak botched-up versions of their names, she also tried to teach her the basics of communication.
This wasn't something that could be forced, and while Evelyn didn't consider herself an expert, she at least knew that communication was more than just words.
For this primordial creature who probably had never ever tried to communicate with others, simply teaching her words would serve little purpose, even if she managed to slowly expand her vocabulary.
So instead of simply focusing on making her learn new words, Evelyn decided to teach her to be attentive while listening, and also pay attention to her actions and expression.
The soul space, in this case, turned out to be an invaluable tool. She could easily change the environment to suit her needs, and also materialize the image of any object that she needed for demonstration purposes.
Perhaps Nadia sensed her sincerity on some level, or maybe her affection was already quite high, so she no longer threw tantrums.
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With an attentive and willing student, the job of the 'teacher' of course because much easier, and soon there was no need for Evelyn to make too many exaggerated actions and expressions to get her meaning across.
Although Evelyn wasn't able to use her spirit power, she was still able to use her senses to check the condition of her body, and was relieved when nothing untoward happened even after what seemed like hours of inactivity.
From the outside, it was as if the mermaid and the pink haired girl were frozen in the dark depths of the lake.
By the time Nadia was able to successfully pronounce a few words, including their names, and learned how to communicate with her on a basic level, Evelyn finally felt a subtle change in their connection.
There was still no prompt from the system of successful completion of the yellow mission, nor did she receive any new ability from the mermaid, but Evelyn felt like there was now a strange thread connecting her soul to the mermaid's not much different from Bree, but only on a much smaller scale.
Evelyn placed her palm on the slightly damp bluish-green hair of Nadia, her smile a little complicated. "When we go out from here, you have to take me back, okay?"
Nadia tilted her head curiously. "Eevee… Back?"
After hesitating for a while, the pink haired girl looked into the mermaid's innocent starry eyes, and finally grit her teeth and released her from the soul space.
The half-fish girl blinked in surprise once she found herself back in the familiar water. "Eevee?"
The pink haired girl sighed in her heart, still unable to move. She should have known nothing would change, but at least she no longer needed to worry about being chomped to death by this primordial baby.
Now, she could only trust Nadia to follow her earlier instruction, and take her back to the surface.
Nadia curiously circled around the pink haired girl, as if wondering why the chattering and active being from before was now so still and uncommunicative.
Constantly chattering 'Eevee! Eevee!', the primordial baby seemed to have completely forgotten about her words earlier.
Evelyn's only source of relief was the fact that there hadn't been any other accidents after returning back from the soul space. She had been a little worried about the injury from Nadia's claw, but thankfully it had healed just fine on its own.
It wouldn't really have been a surprise, given that is what should have happened due to her regenerative abilities, but Evelyn had been worried that the lake water would flood into her body and lead to unknown dangers.
The only thing she was unsure of was if this was only the case for herself due to the combination of disease and poison immunity, or if the lake's water didn't have any strange effects inside the body.
Regardless, she was glad to have survived like this, and even if Nadia didn't take her back, as long as she wasn't killed, Aurora should still be able to find her and take her back.
After all, Evelyn knew that even if her affection with Nadia had been raised, and they now had some connection, the primordial creature simply felt close to her.
She wasn't her slave, and Nadia was only slightly more likely to listen to her commands now than she had been before. Her only assurance was that the mermaid was unlikely to harm her, but just that was already a miracle.
At least, that is what she was thinking until Nadia grabbed her by the hand and started dragging her to the depths of the lake.
"Eevee… back!"
The cheerful little mermaid didn't seem to care for the dumbfounded horror that the pink haired girl was experiencing as she realized that the primordial baby had completely misunderstood her words.
She wasn't taking her 'back' to the surface, but back to her own home?!
Evelyn felt a terror from the depths of her soul as she realized she might just be facing creatures that could be even more terrifying than Nadia.
At least, she was a naïve little baby whom she was able to deal with using some tricks and luck, but it was unlikely that such a thing would happen again.
Perhaps Nadia sensed her distress somehow, and actually stopped dragging her down and turned around in confusion.
Just as Evelyn was about to breathe a sigh of relief, the half-fish girl embraced her head carefully. "E-Eat… No?"
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