Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 191: Episode : Lets Go Home.

Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. And Rozy was still swimming.

Caspian groaned weakly.

Roxy slowed down, looking at his face. "Caspian?"

His eyelids fluttered. The golden iris focused, hazy and confused. He looked at her.

He saw the long, floating hair. He saw the face of his little landwalker. But then his eyes traveled down.

He saw the tail.

The magnificent pink tail that shimmered like the dawn he had never seen. It beat rhythmically against the water, strong and sure, carrying his weight as if he were nothing.

Caspian blinked. He thought he was dead. He thought he was in the Afterlife, and the Goddess of the Ocean had come to collect him.

"Beautiful," he rasped, a bubble of blood escaping his lips. "Pink..."

"Yeah, it’s pink," Roxy choked out, tears of relief welling in her eyes, instantly washing away in the ocean. "It matches my robe. Do you like it?"

Caspian reached out a trembling hand. He touched the scales of her tail.

"My species," he whispered, a look of pure, delirious wonder crossing his broken face. "You... turned."

"I evolved," Roxy corrected, tightening her grip on him. "Cost me a fortune. You owe me big time, Caspian."

Caspian smiled. It was a weak, bloody smile, but it was real.

"My mate," he murmured, his eyes sliding shut again as exhaustion took him. "My... pink... pearl."

He went limp in her arms again, but this time, she felt the faint, steady thrum of his heart against her chest.

He was alive and that was all that mattered.

Roxy looked ahead into the dark. "Just hang on," Roxy whispered fiercely, kicking her tail harder. "We’re not done yet."

When the soft orange glow of the thermal vents finally appeared, Roxy almost sobbed with relief. She dragged him over the lip of the rock shelf and into the largest basin.

The water here was hot and soothing.

"Okay," Roxy grunted, maneuvering Caspian’s massive, limp body until his head was propped up on a smooth rock above the waterline. "We’re here. Don’t die on me now, you dramatic fish."

She hovered in the water, her pink fins undulating gently to keep her upright. She looked at him.

He was a mess. His chest was a landscape of dark purple bruises. His left arm was bent at a wrong angle. His indigo tail was shredded, scales missing in patches where the Kraken’s suckers had ripped them away.

[Target: Caspian (King). Status: Recovering.]

[Regeneration Factor: High. Healing in progress.]

Caspian’s chest heaved. It started at his heart and spread outward, knitting bone and sealing flesh. The bruised skin faded from purple to blue to his natural pale white.

His eyes snapped open.

They weren’t glazed anymore. They were gold, sharp, and focused immediately on her.

"You," Caspian rasped.

"Me," Roxy snapped. "Me, dragging your heavy carcass halfway across the ocean because you decided to headbutt a Kraken!"

She splashed water in his face.

"What were you thinking?!" Roxy yelled.

Caspian didn’t flinch at the scolding. He stared at her.

Specifically, he stared at her waist. Or rather, where her waist ended and the rest of her began.

He reached out a hand. His fingers were still trembling slightly from the trauma, but he brushed his fingertips against the scales of her tail.

"Pink," Caspian whispered, as if it were a holy word.

"Yes, it’s pink," Roxy huffed, crossing her arms and floating back slightly. "This is not the first time you have seen it."

"You... changed," Caspian murmured. His eyes tracked the length of the tail, from her hips down to the translucent, silk-like fins fanning out in the current. "You shed the land-legs and chose the water."

He looked up at her face, a slow, dazed smile spreading across his lips.

"You chose me."

"I chose not to drown," Roxy corrected, though her cheeks heated up. "And I chose to save you. Because apparently, the ’King of the Trench’ has zero self-preservation instincts."

Caspian tried to sit up. He winced, clutching his chest.

"Ah," he groaned, sinking back against the rock. "The pain. It is... sharp."

Roxy’s anger vanished instantly. She swam closer, hovering over him. "Where? Your ribs?"

"Here," Caspian pointed to his sternum. He looked at her with wide, pitiful eyes. "It aches. I feel... fragile."

Roxy frowned. She looked at his chest. The bruises were almost gone. His breathing was steady.

"You look fine," she said suspiciously.

"I am weak," Caspian insisted, letting his head loll to the side. "The Kraken... it was very big. I am but a small merman. I need... assistance."

He lifted his arm, the one that had been broken minutes ago but was now clearly reset, and let it drop limp into the water.

"My limbs are heavy," he sighed. "I cannot wash the blood from my scales."

Roxy narrowed her eyes. She knew a swindler when she saw one. This was the same creature that had just killed an SS-Tier monster with a broken spear.

But he looked so pathetic. And he had almost died for her.

"Fine," Roxy sighed, grabbing the sponge she had left on the rock ledge during her last visit. "But if you’re faking, I’m going to hit you with the frying pan."

She began to wash the blood from his chest.

Caspian let out a low, rumbling purr. He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. He was acting like a giant, spoiled cat.

Whenever she tried to pull away to rinse the sponge, he would let out a small, pained noise, and she would immediately return to scrubbing him.

"Is that better?" Roxy asked, cleaning a patch of missing scales on his shoulder.

"Lower," Caspian directed, pointing to his abdomen. "It’s still painful."

Roxy rolled her eyes, but she moved the sponge down.

As she worked, she realized something. He wasn’t just faking for attention. He was fixated.

Every time her tail brushed against his in the water, he shivered. His hand kept drifting down to touch her scales, running his thumb over the iridescent pink armor.

"It is smoother than mine," he observed, tracing a pattern on her hip. "And softer. Like the inside of a conch shell."

"It feels weird," Roxy admitted, swishing her tail. "I keep trying to wiggle my toes, but I just... flap."

"It is perfect," Caspian declared.

He suddenly sat up and grabbed her waist with both hands, pulling her flush against him.

"Whoa!" Roxy yelped, dropping the sponge. "I thought you were fragile!"

"I healed," Caspian said intensely, his face inches from hers.

The water around them was warm, steaming slightly. His golden eyes searched hers, looking for something, rejection, fear, disgust. He found none of it.

He leaned in.

Roxy’s breath hitched.

She knew she should push him away. She knew he was a kidnapper, a monster, a fish-man who didn’t understand the concept of personal space.

But he was also the man who had stood alone against the dark to keep her safe.

She didn’t push him away. She stopped flapping her fins. She went still.

Caspian closed the distance and kissed her.

Roxy braced herself. Part of her brain expected it to be gross. She expected him to taste like raw squid, or salt, or fish. She expected it to be cold and slimy.

It wasn’t.

His lips were cool, yes, but firm. And he didn’t taste like the ocean. He tasted... sweet. Like the mineral water of the thermal spring, mixed with something distinctly electric.

It was addictive.

He kissed her like he was trying to breathe her in. His hands tightened on her waist, his thumbs pressing into the sensitive new scales where her hips used to be.

The sensation sent a jolt of heat through her entire body, a weird mix of human desire and mermaid instinct.

Roxy’s hands found his shoulders. She meant to push, but instead, she gripped him, her fingers tangling in his wet, silver hair.

She melted into it. Caspian let out a growl deep in his throat, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them.

Then, Roxy’s brain rebooted.

What am I doing?

She gasped, pulling back.

She put her hands on his chest and shoved.

"Okay," Roxy breathed, her face burning. "Okay. That’s... that’s enough healing for now."

Caspian chased her for an inch, then stopped. He looked dazed. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing the gold. He licked his lips, tasting her.

"Sweet," he murmured, looking at her mouth like it was the only food source left in the ocean.

Roxy cleared her throat, smoothing down her wet hair, trying to regain some semblance of control. Her tail was swishing nervously behind her, splashing water.

She looked around the thermal pool. It was a nice hole in a rock, but it wasn’t a home. It had no roof. It had no food. And the Kraken carcass was floating a few miles away, likely attracting every scavenger in the Trench.

"Caspian," Roxy said, trying to make her voice steady. "We can’t stay here."

Caspian blinked, shaking off the haze of the kiss. He looked around, his expression hardening as he remembered the reality of their situation.

"No," he agreed. "The Garden is gone. The wall is shattered. The scent of blood will bring the Deep-Sharks."

"So," Roxy asked, looking at him. "Where do we go? I don’t have a bubble anymore. I have a tail, but I don’t know how to survive out in the open."

Caspian stood up in the water. He towered over her, his strength fully returned. He reached out and took her hand.

"We go home," Caspian stated.

"Home?" Roxy frowned. "Your cave is destroyed, Caspian. We don’t have a home."

Caspian shook his head. He turned, pointing south, toward the deepest, darkest part of the Trench—a place where the water pressure was enough to crush diamond.

"Not the cave," he said.

He looked back at her, a strange mixture of pride and hesitation in his eyes.

"Now that you are... of the water," Caspian said, squeezing her hand. "Now that you have the tail... you can enter."

"Enter where?" Roxy asked.

"The Spires," Caspian said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "The City of the Deep. Where the currents meet. Where all merpeople stay."

He looked at her pink tail again, and a dark, possessive glint returned to his eyes.

"I will take you to my people. And I will show them that the King has finally found his Queen."

A/N: Tomorrow there would be 5 Chapters dropping!