Greetings, I am wondering if you must complete the quest in watertown to collect the 40 pearls from the mermaids to be able to finish the game. I am just not willing to waste the amount of time it would take to keep diving under water to get all 40 of them, while dodging mermaids. 5 or 10 would have been a reasonable amount. 40 is just ludicrous. Cheers!!
I'm pretty sure that it's an optional quest. You don't need it to beat the main story, but to beat the game completely, yes, you'll need to finish it.