I cautiously entered into the cave, careful not to shake my head too much. I could hear the little mermaid's breathing further down the cave, coming from her room.

I entered her room and found her on her bed, hugging her own knees and with her face buried in said knees. I couldn't tell if she was asleep or not, but I wasn't nice enough to let her off after having gone through such trouble for her.

Using the tip of my tail, I prodded her awake. She reluctantly looked up, dark bags under her eye clear as day. It was eerily human, but I suppose overall there was little difference between her and a human so far.

Who knows though. She might be hiding an alien-like second jaw somewhere up her ass. Not that I can judge much, considering I'm a fucking snake.

She looked at me with a tired expression. I don't know what she'd been doing over the day or so I was away, but judging from her bloodied knuckles, it most likely was not something any reasonable parent would approve of.

Good thing I wasn't her parent since what I was about to do was probably a lot worse.

I opened my maw, and out came a huge mouthful of very, very small fish, barely 30cm in length each.

I'd had to track these idiots down for quite a while, but when I found them, I just lunged and put in my mouth as many as I could.

Good stuff.

I lowered my head and stared at the little girl, who was looking at the fishies with a baffled look on her cute little face. Seriously, why was she looking at them with pity?

She babbled something that I couldn't understand, so I gently whacked her head with my tail. She shot me an angry look, red cheeks all puffed out. I offered my head to her, and she touched it after a bit of incoherent mumbling.

"We have to help them! They're suffering! Why did you bring them here?" She asked me in rapid succession. Aah, yes. She praises me for killing a crab but wants to help some random small and dumb fish. I call racism.

"Dear, we are not going to 'help' them. In fact, you're going to kill them. All."

"W-what?" She asked, a stunned look on her face. Seriously, what did she expect?

"You said you wanted to become stronger. I said I'd help you out a bit. So, go ahead. Get stronger. Level up. Or is your family not worth your effort? Are a couple of mindless fish worth more than your own hope and dreams? Are you such a coward tha-"

"I GET IT! SHUT UP!" She screamed in my mind. I would have recoiled in surprise, but this was the outcome I was hoping for, so instead, I opened my mouth, put it next to my body, and basically punched my own fangs in.

One of them broke off painfully. A stream of blue blood came out, but I quickly shut my mouth, running my tongue over my already regenerating tooth to soothe the pain.

"W-what are you doing?" She asked, eyeing the 40cm long, almost spear-like fang now resting on the ground.

"P-pick it up, dear. Do you want to be strong? You need levels. I don't know how exactly you mermaids work, but I'm sure killing these little things, no matter how weak they may be, will be helpful to you. S-so, get to killing." I said, trying to keep the shaking out of my voice as I felt my new fang slowly push itself into my mouth. God damn it, this hurt like hell.

"B-but..." She hesitated. At this point, I was starting to get a bit pissed off, and regardless of the fact that I couldn't physically get angry, I somehow felt like it.

"Kill. The. Damn. Fish." I said, slowly. She slumped down, clumsily tried to pick up my fang and waddled over to the flopping fishes. They could breathe this strange air, but they obviously couldn't really move.

She looked at the first fish with an almost apologetic look, glanced back my way, then, with a loud battle cry, stabbed her spear down into the fish.

... And somehow missed. I want my hands back just so I can facepalm.

"T-this is heavy!" She said defensively, an embarrassed blush on her cheeks. "Yes, I'm sure it is. Hurry up please, I'd like to get down to more serious things." I retorted, having finally finished growing my damn fang back.

I'm never doing that again, by the way. Way too painful for any reasonable snake to do, and I'm the most reasonable noodle to have ever noodled.

Finally, the little girl got to work actually killing the fish. Her face had an actually pained look on her face each time of the little fishies died, which made me seriously consider if it was worth my time helping this girl.

She'd never survive out in the real world, not even in the relatively peaceful reef. Mercilessness was a must in the ocean, and from what I could gather from clues, probably in this entire world. After all, when you can become godlike through mass murder... Well, psychopaths should be a lot more common here than in my old world.

Oh well. At least someone will remember her when she becomes nothing more than food for some random overgrown fish.

When she was finally finished with all the fishes, I allowed her a couple of minutes of mental (and physical) rest. I ate up the remains of the fish while she unhappily munched on a little piece of the tuna I'd brought her a couple of days ago.

When we were both finished, I slithered over next to her. She allowed me to do so and even rested her head on my side as her eyes took a far-away look.

"You did well, dearie. Now, if you can, show me your status."

"B-but... Dad said not to share my status..." She said tiredly, eyes on the verge of closing.

"Yesss, but I'm sure your dad would approve of my help." I countered. Too tired to argue, she swiped over her status screen over to me. Well, apparently you can do that. I was only half convinced it'd work.

Shelly Seaspear - Mermaid Princess

Age - 9 years old

Level - 5

Constitution - 2

Strength - 3

Dexterity - 6

Intelligence - 10

Wisdom - 13

Remaining points - 9

Skills - (Mana Manipulation Lv. 6), (Singing Lv. 5), (Dancing Lv. 7)

Spells - (Telepathy Lv. 3), (Water Manipulation Lv. 4), (Candle Light Lv. 1), (...)

I hissed lightly as I read through her stats. She'd obviously gone down the opposite path to my own, instead choosing to go down the magical support path. Although it may very well not have been her choice, instead her parent's. Or perhaps that was just how mermaids did it? Who knows.

Also, really? Her name is bloody Shelly? What a stupid sounding name. I knew I was better off ignorant.