I Own A Brothel In Another World (Ch. 1-196)

Chapter 162 - Giant Surprise

After gazing at the beautiful coral city long enough, we begin to move. Since Meru is obviously much more familiar with the area, she takes the lead and I follow after her. Doing my best to keep myself close, I earnestly rely on her knowledge of the terrain and the surroundings of the reef. Her confident movements certainly are a good sign.

First, we start heading further away from the settlement, passing by a few big leaves of seaweed. Making sure to stay as much out of sight as we can, we use them to our advantage and take a peek from behind the underwater flora, trying to look out for possible enemies. We've spotted a bunch of Sahuagins down in the village so we definitely need to stay on guard while swimming around.

Soon, we reach a small cliff and Meru dives into the decently spacious crevice. I quickly do the same and we zig-zag deeper just by the vertical slope. There aren't many things for us to hide behind so she picks up speed and guides me to the destination she is aiming for. It turns out to be a small cavern hidden behind a blanket of algae. I watch her pass through it in a blink and do the same.

As expected, we end up in a somewhat narrow tunnel. It looks to be natural, with just some faint traces of external activity. It's not much so I guess this passage wasn't that well-known to the villagers. It might have been some kind of a curious secret amongst the younger generation or some group of friends.

In any case, Meru slows down a little and I catch up to her. We travel through the hidden tunnel side by side. The walls are covered with pretty mould which illuminates the stone corridor in a light brown hue. To some extent, it feels like we are going through a mountain-crossing road with more or less regularly placed lamps. It's always been a trippy thing going through those.

After a short while, we slow down even more and Meru gestures at me to keep as quiet as possible. I nod at her and let my fierce sharkgirl mate swim first. The path curves upwards and becomes slightly less spacious anyway, forcing us to split. As we travel through it, the mould gradually disappears and a more natural light illuminates the exit of the passage.

Meru rushes through it first, obviously, and makes a sharp turn to the left. Already able to recognize the big chamber on the other side, I swim through the hole too and choose to turn right to avoid crashing into her in case she would have stopped for whatever reason. Nothing and no one raises any alarms or attacks us so I assume we've made it here safely.

Looking around, I realise that we aren't exactly in a chamber but a massive aquatic coral tree of the same colour as the mould we've passed by on the way to this place. There are plenty of small holes in the entire structure of the coral, letting in light from the outside. They thankfully aren't big enough to easily peek inside, but that can't be said about peering through them towards the outside world.

Still admiring the beautiful and very mysterious sight, I try to swim up to Meru, who is moving around by one of the coral's walls and looking through the gaps. I join her, gently running my hand over her smooth back. Bringing myself closer and giving her tail a few tender rubs, I take a glance through the natural windows too.

It turns out that we are located pretty much in the very middle of the coral village that we've seen from the edges earlier. This massive structure grows on a small hill and its branches extend to the sides in every direction. Some of them are definitely wide enough for at least one of us to swim into them and peek outside that way too.

But, the view we get from the trunk of this coral tree is already impressive. Just to make it a little bit better, we rise by about two floors of a commonly-sized house and gain an even better angle. It allows us to see the entire settlement, up to the very borders. It seems to be even bigger than I first assumed. The terrain isn't perfectly flat so many buildings are at different levels, be it higher or lower, which might create the illusion of a less busy area.