Upon arriving at the west coast, Klein and Ophelia sought out Nelisa.
The Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce had requisitioned an entire row of warehouses near the harbor, and Nelisa was waiting in the innermost one. Two men from the chamber stood at the door, armed with short swords; seeing Klein and Ophelia approach, they stepped aside without a word.
Nelisa stood behind a long table covered in nautical charts, a charcoal pencil still gripped in her hand. She looked up as the two entered and set the pencil down.
“You’re half a day earlier than I expected.”
“The coachman was very diligent,” Klein said. He replied casually, but his gaze had already swept across the tabletop—the nautical charts were covered in dense charcoal markings, with at least seven or eight circles drawn along the coastline, some labeled with dates and numbers.
Nelisa’s expression was serious, though not panicked. Her clothing was neat, her hair tied up without a single stray strand, and the nautical charts and documents on the table were stacked in perfect order. This woman became even more organized under pressure, completely unlike the merchants Klein knew who would fall into a frantic mess at the first sign of trouble.
“How is the situation?” Klein asked.
“Controllable,” Nelisa replied crisply. “There are no casualty reports yet. The fishermen have been notified, and all near-shore operations have been suspended. But—”
She didn’t finish her sentence, instead turning toward a door in the back.
“Come see for yourselves.”
Behind the door was a larger room. It had likely been used for storing goods originally, but it had been cleared out now, with a row of long tables against the wall covered in glass containers of various sizes.
Sealed anomalous organisms.
The number was higher than Klein had anticipated. A quick count revealed at least forty or fifty samples. The containers were filled with preservation solutions of different colors—some were the salt-based solutions commonly used by the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce, while others appeared to be temporary mixtures of varying shades, suggesting the preparer had used whatever was at hand.
The moment they pushed the door open and stepped inside, Ophelia’s pace faltered for a split second.
The movement was slight, almost imperceptible. But Klein, standing half a step behind her, noticed it.
It wasn't hesitation—it was more like an instinctive alertness, like the moment a hound’s ears prick up after catching an off scent in the air.
She continued forward, her steps perfectly steady. However, she did not approach the containers.
Klein walked to the table, leaned over, and scanned them one by one.
Strangely enough—these creatures looked perfectly ordinary.
A palm-sized fish with a bluish dorsal fin and a silver-white belly, no different from common near-shore baitfish. In the container next to it was some kind of crustacean with a grayish-brown shell and normally proportioned claws. Further down, a mass of soft tissue lay at the bottom of a container, resembling a sea anemone or perhaps a jellyfish larva.
There were no grotesque forms, no aggressive structural features, and even their colors were unremarkable.
They simply… shouldn’t exist.
Klein straightened up and rubbed his chin.
He was silent for a few seconds, then raised his right hand, pressing his fingertips slightly together.
A very thin film of light spread from his fingertips, covering his eyes.
The moment the film of light covered his pupils, the world before him changed.
The molecular structure of the salt-based solution became clearly discernible, and the tiny scratches on the container walls looked as if they had been magnified dozens of times. Every single scale pattern on that palm-sized fish was revealed in minute detail—the thickness of the keratin layer, the direction of the arrangement, the distribution of pigment cells—all laid bare in his vision like the pages of an open book.
He looked through the containers one by one.
The direction of the fish’s muscle fibers—normal. The composition of the crustacean’s exoskeleton—normal. The tissue density of the soft-bodied organism—normal. Mana residue—nearly zero, no different from an ordinary marine creature.
There was no abnormality whatsoever.
They were clean. Like a group of ordinary fish, shrimp, and crabs randomly scooped from the sea.
Klein withdrew the technique. As the film of light faded from his eyes, he blinked to let his pupils readjust to the normal light.
The result was unsettling.
It was like walking into an empty room where the lights were on, the window was open, and the floor was clean with nothing in sight—yet the back of your neck wouldn't stop tingling.
“Are there live specimens?” he asked.
“Yes. The entire back row,” Nelisa said, pointing toward the window. “The living ones are kept in seawater tanks. I haven't let anyone touch them, for fear of damaging something.”
Klein walked over to take a look. The things kept in several large glass tanks were similar to the specimens in the front—they looked almost too normal. A small fish swam leisurely in the tank, occasionally pecking at the bubbles on the glass. Its tail fin swayed back and forth in a lazy rhythm, no different from the miscellaneous fish fishermen kept in buckets waiting for market.
“What are you afraid of?” Klein muttered to the fish in the tank, his tone inappropriately light.
The fish pecked at the spot on the glass where his fingertip rested, then swam away.
Ophelia stood two paces behind him. She hadn't approached the containers since entering the room, but her gaze had been scanning them constantly from left to right, then right to left, observing every single sample.
Her right hand hung naturally at her side, while her left hand remained tucked within the folds of her cloak.
She didn't smell anything. To be precise—she had smelled it. The familiar, fishy sweetness that didn't belong to normal seawater had appeared when she entered, closer and clearer than it had been at the harbor. But then it vanished, as if something had actively withdrawn it.
This made her expression even calmer. It was the kind of calm that preceded taking action.
“Are they aggressive?” she asked Nelisa.
“None has been observed so far,” Nelisa replied. “There was no resistance during capture either. The fishermen pulled them up in their nets, no different from catching ordinary fish.”
“That’s the most uncomfortable part,” Klein said, tapping twice on the edge of a container. “If they had three heads and eight tails, I’d actually be less worried…”
He didn't finish the sentence, simply withdrawing his finger from the container.
Nelisa looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
Klein didn't. He turned to look at the other side of the room—against the wall there was a complete alchemical workstation. Array disks, distillers, sampling tools, and graduated instruments for analysis were all present. Even the auxiliary light source had been adjusted, its angle directed at the center of the workbench to minimize shadows.
Klein’s gaze lingered on the equipment for a few extra seconds.
“This equipment—”
“Brought in urgently,” Nelisa said. “Prepared for you.”
Klein walked over and picked up the array disk to inspect it. The craftsmanship was indeed excellent, with clear markings and a finely polished surface; its precision was nearly one and a half times that of the standard models used in the central Empire. The distiller’s interface specifications matched the set he used at the manor—a relatively obscure standard that most merchant groups wouldn't go out of their way to stock.
He set the array disk back down and nodded to Nelisa.
“We can start anytime,” Nelisa said. “If you need extra hands, the chamber can provide them.”
Klein didn't answer immediately. He rolled up his right sleeve, glanced at the layout of the tools on the workstation, and then looked back at Ophelia.
Ophelia gave a slight nod.
He withdrew his gaze and stepped toward the workstation.
“Then I won't be formal.”
As he spoke, he had already picked up a sampling knife. The blade spun half a turn between his fingers before stopping in front of the container holding the palm-sized blue-backed fish.
Nelisa stepped back, giving him ample space to work.
Ophelia didn't move. She leaned against the doorframe, her left hand still tucked in her cloak, her golden eyes quietly watching Klein’s back.
The room fell silent. Only the sound of water in the glass tanks and the whistling of the sea breeze through the window cracks remained.
The ordinary little fish pecked at another bubble in the tank, its tail fin swaying lazily, as if nothing had happened.
Rate on N.U.
