Klein was momentarily stunned.
He glanced back at Ophelia. Her left hand was still maintaining the output for the battle qi shield, its golden film of light clinging to the hull to separate the ship from the cognate organisms swimming beneath the surface. She didn't speak, only offering a slight shake of her head—the meaning was clear: you decide.
He turned back to the water.
The mermaid remained where she was, neither approaching nor retreating. The arc of her wet hair spreading across the sea's surface hadn't shifted, indicating she hadn't moved an inch. She simply drifted there, waiting.
This was a situation he certainly hadn't anticipated.
From Silver Scale Harbor until now, he had encountered quite a few anomalous creatures. The blue-backed fish, the crustaceans, and those mollusks clinging to the undersea reefs—all were products decompressed from a siren's biological information. But those things shared a common trait: they lacked high-level cognition. Those that swam fast just swam, those that bit just bit, and those that hung motionless stayed that way. They were driven by instinct, with nothing more to be said.
And then there was the one before him.
“Hello” and “Excuse me, where is this?”
Those two sentences implied a prerequisite—she knew that she didn't know where she was. This wasn't behavior driven by instinct; it was self-awareness.
An intelligent being possessing self-awareness.
Klein processed this fact in his mind, and a nerve in the back of his head twitched. Interesting. Also, troublesome.
He didn't lower his guard. Being able to communicate didn't mean she wasn't a threat.
The singing of sirens was the best example—those things could speak too, and everything they said sounded beautiful right before they dragged you to the bottom of the sea.
Klein made a decision.
“This is the Empire's west coast,” he began, his tone casual, as if chatting with someone on a pier. “If you swim east for a while, you'll see the coastline.”
He was observing her reaction.
Upon hearing this, the mermaid tilted her head. The movement was a bit stiff; the angle her neck turned was a few degrees further than a normal human's, carrying a mechanical quality—her body's movement patterns hadn't fully adapted yet.
“Continent.” She repeated the word, her articulation smoother than before. She was a fast learner. “I do not know this place.”
Klein crouched down, resting one hand on the railing to bring his line of sight level with the mermaid on the water.
Those grayish-green eyes truly lacked any hostility. Her pupils were of normal size, not constricted, and they lacked the specific focus characteristic of deep-sea creatures staring at prey. The way she looked at Klein was closer to how someone who had just woken up looks out a window.
“Where did you come from?” he asked.
The mermaid fell silent for a few seconds. It wasn't that she was hiding something; she was thinking. Her lips moved twice without making a sound—she was organizing her language.
“Below.”
She raised a hand and pointed beneath the water. Her fingers were slender, and at the transition from fingertip to wrist, there was a layer of extremely thin, translucent webbing.
“A very deep place. Very dark.”
Klein asked several more questions.
A name—she tilted her head, her lips pursing, her expression like someone flipping through a blank book. Finally, she shook her head.
Origin—“Below.” It was still those same two words as she pointed to the seabed. When pressed for details—which sea area, what depth, any nearby buildings or landmarks—she shook her head to all of them. It wasn't a refusal to speak; there truly was nothing. There wasn't a single trace of avoidance in those eyes; they were simply empty.
Age—this question confused her the longest. She looked down at her hands, then at the neatly arranged scales on her tail, and finally looked up.
“I do not know.”
Fair enough.
Klein tried a different direction.
“Why were you singing?”
This time, she didn't hesitate.
“Shouldn't a mermaid sing?”
Klein opened his mouth but found no reply.
A very faint sound of breath came from behind him. He didn't need to look back to know it was Ophelia laughing—not out loud, just a soft huff through her nose.
He was indeed stumped. It wasn't that the question was particularly tricky, but the logic behind the answer required a few seconds of thought. She didn't know her name, her origin, or how long she had lived. But she knew she was a mermaid. And she believed that a mermaid should sing.
She had no individual memory, but she possessed species identity.
When the siren's biological information was decompressed into this individual, the personal history section was blank, but the species profile had been written in.
Klein crouched by the railing, elbows on his knees, rubbing his chin with his thumb.
“You certainly know your own race.”
She blinked. This movement was also a bit awkward, the rhythm of her eyelids closing and opening slightly slow.
“Is there something strange about that?”
“Not strange.” Klein stood up, his knees cracking. “A fish might also know it's a fish. It’s just that fish don't usually swim over to say hello to people.”
The mermaid didn't speak, just watched him with her head tilted at that slightly excessive angle. Her neck's movement was still a bit off, but it was smoother than before—she was adapting to this body.
“Can you say anything else?” Klein asked. “Besides greetings and asking for directions.”
The mermaid's lips moved and then stopped. She sank a little further into the water, leaving only the area above her collarbones exposed, her long hair spreading even wider across the surface.
“I can sing many songs.”
Ophelia's voice came from behind. “Ask her if she knows what those things under the water are.”
Klein glanced back—Ophelia stood where she was, her gaze passing over him to stare at the sea around the mermaid. Those cognate organisms were still circling the ship, dark blue shadows moving in endless rings.
He relayed the question.
The mermaid looked down into the water, her movement natural.
“They follow me,” she said. “They always have. They were beside me when I woke up.”
“When you woke up?” Klein caught the word.
“Yes. In a very deep, dark place, I opened my eyes and they were surrounding me. Then, I swam up.”
When she said this, her tone was as flat as if she were describing waking up and brushing her teeth in the morning.
Rate on N.U.
