The mermaid girl's scream pierced through the peaceful night like a siren's wail, echoing off the coral buildings and threatening to wake half the district.
Jerry, who had been peacefully examining his catch of mysterious shells, nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden accusation.
"This is all a huge misunderstanding!" was his first instinct—to explain the situation immediately and clear up the confusion.
But then his survival instincts kicked in, and he realized that trying to explain would only make things infinitely worse. The more he protested his innocence while standing there with a box of what were apparently mermaid undergarments, the more suspicious he'd look.
With reflexes that would make a cheetah jealous, Jerry dropped the shell-filled box, collapsed his fishing rod, and vanished from the scene like smoke in the wind. His movements were so quick that the mermaid girl couldn't help but wonder if she'd imagined the entire encounter.
But as the sound of his rapid departure faded into the distance and she saw the scattered shells floating in the water, she realized this was no hallucination and continued her ear-splitting alarm.
Her deafening shouts quickly attracted a crowd of concerned mermaid sisters and several kingdom guards who'd been patrolling the nearby areas.
After breathless questioning, the soldiers immediately dispersed to search for clues throughout the bay and surrounding districts.
Unfortunately for their investigation, the darkness combined with Jerry's lightning-fast escape meant the mermaid witness could provide frustratingly few details. She'd only caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure holding some kind of fishing equipment before he disappeared completely.
Meanwhile, Jerry was racing through Fishman Island's winding streets at top speed, mentally cursing his system for its underhanded tactics.
"That broken system set me up!" he thought furiously as he sprinted through the coral corridors. "If I hadn't reacted so quickly and gotten out of there immediately, my reputation would've been destroyed forever!"
As he ran, Jerry wrapped himself in a thin layer of water and used his mastery over the element to bend light around his form, creating a crude but effective optical camouflage. Combined with the pre-dawn darkness, his technique allowed him to slip through the shadows like a ghost, undetected by the few early risers he encountered.
Soon enough, he made it back to their ship without anyone spotting him.
"Phew... safe at last," Jerry whispered, sneaking quietly into his cabin while mentally reviewing the close call. As far as he could tell, there was no way his identity had been compromised during the incident.
After spending several minutes mentally berating his troublesome system for putting him in such a compromising situation, Jerry grudgingly opened the reward chest he'd earned from completing the ridiculous quest.
[Reward: Wall-breaking Bead]
"Wall-breaking Bead?" Jerry muttered, examining the strange item. "Never heard of anything like this. What kind of weird reward is this supposed to be?"
He checked the item description for more details:
[Wall-breaking Bead: Breaks through barriers.]
"That's it? That's the entire explanation?" Jerry complained quietly. "No usage instructions, no specific applications, nothing? What am I supposed to do with something this vague?"
"Is this like some kind of demolition tool? A magical battering ram?" he wondered, turning the mysterious bead over in his hands.
"Useless system! This was all just an elaborate prank to mess with me," Jerry grumbled as he finally settled down to get some rest before morning.
As dawn broke over Fishman Island, the crew began stirring from their cabins one by one. Jerry emerged onto the deck acting as though nothing unusual had happened during the night.
He found Skull, Deuce, Carina, and Carrot already gathered together, engaged in animated discussion about something that seemed to have them all worked up.
"Morning, everyone!" Jerry called out with a casual wave and an exaggerated yawn, hoping his performance looked natural.
However, instead of their usual cheerful responses, all four crewmates turned to stare at him with distinctly suspicious expressions.
Even Kotatsu padded over and sat down in front of him, tilting his head with what looked suspiciously like judgment in his feline eyes.
"What?" Jerry asked, maintaining his innocent facade while his heart rate spiked. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"
After exchanging glances with the others, Deuce apparently decided someone needed to address the elephant in the room.
"Ahem... Jerry, about what happened at Mermaid Bay last night..." he began carefully.
"Wait, what do you mean 'what happened'?" Jerry interrupted with masterful acting skills, tilting his head in confusion. "Did something interesting occur while I was sleeping? You can't just leave me hanging with half a story, Deuce!"
Jerry had no intention of admitting to anything that might lead to social catastrophe, regardless of how much evidence they thought they had.
"Well, here's the situation..." Deuce began, then proceeded to relay the version of events they'd heard through Skull's information network.
According to the story making rounds through the district, a young mermaid had been storing her collection of decorative shells—which apparently included some rather personal items—in a small waterproof box anchored in the bay. During the night, she'd noticed the container rising rapidly toward the surface and was about to disappear entirely.
Acting quickly, she'd dove into the water to investigate and spotted a dark figure on the shore who had apparently fished up her box and was examining its contents one by one with what seemed like suspicious interest.
Shocked and outraged by this apparent invasion of privacy, she'd screamed for help.
The moment the mysterious thief heard her cry, he'd panicked, dropped everything, muttered something unintelligible, and vanished faster than the eye could follow.
Unfortunately, the combination of darkness, distance, and her own loud screaming meant she couldn't make out the culprit's face or hear what he'd said. The only concrete clue was that the suspect had been carrying what appeared to be fishing equipment.
Through process of elimination, the working theory was that the perpetrator was most likely human—after all, humans made up the largest non-native population currently on Fishman Island, fishing rods were primarily human tools, and frankly, humans already had a somewhat tarnished reputation on the island due to past incidents.
After listening to Deuce's retelling, Jerry felt a wave of relief. Without direct evidence or witness identification, this would be easy enough to deflect.
He straightened up, put on his most dignified expression, and decided to go on the offensive.
"So what you're telling me," Jerry said with perfectly controlled indignation, "is that you're actually suspecting me based on nothing more than the fact that someone was allegedly carrying fishing gear?"
"Do I look like the kind of person who would do something so perverted? Just because I happen to own a fishing rod like half the sailors in the world?"
"Ahaha... of course not!" Deuce backpedaled quickly. "We just thought it would be better to, you know, clear the air and discuss it openly."
The crew members genuinely believed they knew Jerry's character well enough to dismiss such suspicions, and Deuce's response showed they were already backing down from their half-hearted accusations.
But just because they didn't seriously suspect him didn't mean they were going to let this golden opportunity for teasing pass by unnoticed.
"Hmm, I don't know..." Carina said with a sly grin, finally seeing her chance for revenge after all the grief Jerry had given her. "The evidence is pretty circumstantial, but the timing is awfully convenient, don't you think?"
"That's right! It definitely sounds like something you'd do!" she continued, pressing her advantage.
"You want me to touch your head, Sister Carina?" Carrot asked innocently, completely misunderstanding the conversation.
"Touch your—no, I'm talking about him!" Carina sputtered, pointing at Jerry.
"Ooh, then you can pet my head! It feels really nice," Carrot said happily, pressing her head against Carina's hand with obvious delight.
Carina found herself helplessly distracted by the adorable rabbit mink, her accusatory momentum completely derailed by Carrot's innocent interruption.
Jerry silently gave Carrot a mental thumbs-up, already planning to get her extra carrots as a reward for the perfectly timed distraction.
"Haha, you're like a detective trying to solve a case with no evidence," Jerry said to Carina with a smirk. "What's next, are you going to dust for fingerprints?"
"I may not have proof, but I know a suspicious character when I see one!" Carina shot back, unwilling to let him off the hook so easily. She'd file this away in her mental notebook for future reference.
However, Jerry never backed down from a verbal sparring match.
"How shallow of you to make such accusations!" he declared dramatically. "I'll have you know I was voted one of the East Blue's Top Ten Most Upright Young Men of the Year!"
"East Blue?" Carina repeated, her expression suddenly shifting as unexpected memories surfaced. "You're actually from East Blue?"
Hearing that familiar name brought back a flood of recollections from her past, and for a moment she seemed lost in thought...
Before she could sink too deeply into nostalgia, Jerry's trademark mischievous grin snapped her back to the present.
"Why? Trying to find some common ground with a fellow East Blue native?" he teased.
"In your dreams!" Carina snapped, her face flushing slightly as she tried to regain her composure.
And with that, the two continued their back-and-forth banter, much to the amusement of their watching crewmates.