It was already afternoon.
Klein put down his pen and leaned in for a closer look.
A fish about the length of a palm—more accurately, it could no longer be called a fish. Below its belly, from the position where the tail fin should have been, two thin, pale human lower limbs had sprouted. The knees could bend, the toes could move, and it even made a kicking motion in the water.
But the fish tail was still there.
The two legs were thrust out from the base of the tail, hanging alongside the original tail fin, with all four appendages paddling frantically in the water. The entire fish's swimming posture had become extremely bizarre—when the tail swung left, the legs kicked right, completely uncoordinated, like two separate motor systems fighting each other.
Klein stared at it for a long while.
He picked up the notebook beside him and wrote a line under today's date. After finishing, he crossed out two words, revised the phrasing, and finally drew a checkmark at the end.
As long as it can be born.
The process was much smoother than he had expected—extracting the structural blueprint for bipedal locomotion from biological information and then guiding it onto a living subject through an alchemical medium. He had deduced this entire workflow on paper no less than twenty times.
Only when he actually did it did he realize that the information density left behind by the sirens far exceeded his estimates.
He could even handle the siren's information to some extent; dealing with these current matters was like learning calculus and then looking at a simple linear equation—it was almost too easy.
But the problem remained.
This wasn't for Aphros. This was just a test subject—an ordinary live fish. A process that could run on a fish was still worlds apart from being applied to a mermaid. Moreover, what Aphros wanted wasn't to grow two extra legs, but to replace her fish tail with legs.
Klein flipped the notebook back a few pages and scanned the parameters he had recorded earlier.
The direction was correct. Since the birth step had been cleared, the rest was a technical matter of optimization and replacement.
As he was pondering how to adjust the medium ratio for the next step, there were three knocks on the door.
“Mr. Klein?”
A young voice came from outside, carrying the polite tone typical of a subordinate at a chamber of commerce.
Klein didn't even look up. “Come in.”
The door pushed open a crack, and half a head peeked in. It was someone from the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce, wearing the uniform gray-blue shirt with a silver emblem pinned to the chest.
“President Nelisa would like you to come over.”
Klein’s hand stayed on the notebook, the tip of his pen hovering without descending. He lifted an eyelid—it wasn't that he didn't want to go, but his work was halfway through, and stopping here felt uncomfortable.
“Also—” The man paused, seemingly organizing his words, “Her Highness Diancie has arrived.”
The pen tip hit the paper, leaving a blot of ink.
This time, Klein looked up.
Diancie.
Right, he had notified her as well.
But... why was she only arriving now?
“She brought some things with her.” The man’s expression was a bit subtle, and he weighed his words for two seconds before continuing, “Creatures born from sirens. The President said... they are species you haven't seen yet.”
Klein set his pen down.
Unseen species.
Now that was interesting.
And the fact that Nelisa specifically mentioned it meant it was definitely out of the ordinary.
“I understand. I’ll head over once I’ve cleaned up.”
The man nodded and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Klein stood up and first covered the water tank—the four-legged fish inside was still splashing around, its two extra legs kicking up water.
He took one last look and shook his head.
It truly looked like the work of a pervert.
He put his tools back on the workbench one by one, returned the potion vials to the rack in order, and folded the stained cloth to press it into a corner.
As he finished cleaning up, his hand paused.
Near the back of the table sat a palm-sized white porcelain jar. He had taken the time to refine the jar this morning. It wasn't for the experiment, nor did it have anything to do with sirens—it contained the hand-care ointment for Ophelia. Something he had promised in the morning and finished by the afternoon; the efficiency was high enough to surprise even himself.
He picked up the jar, weighed it in his hand, and his mouth twitched slightly. He tucked the jar into the inner pocket of his coat, close to his chest.
Klein patted the pocket to make sure it wouldn't rattle, then pushed the door open and walked out.
...
When he arrived at the location, the first thing Klein saw was Ophelia’s back.
She was standing near the right edge of the dock, facing away from the sea, her hair a bit messy from the wind. Her left hand was behind her back, and her right hand rested on the hilt of the sword at her waist—not a posture of alertness, but pure habit.
She had arrived earlier than him.
But not by much. There were no extra footprints on the ground, and the dust scuffs on the stone slab where she stood were still fresh.
Klein walked over and stopped three steps away to her left.
Neither of them spoke, only exchanging a glance.
Nelisa stood about five or six steps behind them. Diancie was not present.
This was interesting.
The person who came to notify him said "Her Highness Diancie has also arrived," but the scene before him clearly wasn't the result of Diancie arriving first and then calling for them.
Nelisa’s position was also wrong—if Diancie were already here, she should be accompanying her, not standing alone in the back looking at the sea.
So it wasn't Diancie who had notified him.
It was Nelisa sensing that Diancie was on her way.
Klein glanced toward Nelisa. She gave him a slight nod, offering no further explanation. Her expression was calm, but the composure of someone who had already set the chessboard and was waiting for everyone to take their seats was impossible to hide.
But now was not the time to worry about that.
Klein and Ophelia’s gazes simultaneously turned toward the horizon.
Meeting at the dock when Diancie hadn't arrived yet only meant one thing—she was coming from the sea.
“When did Nelisa get the news?” Klein lowered his voice.
“She didn't say.” Ophelia’s voice was even lower, only audible to the two of them. “She was already here when I arrived.”
“You didn't ask?”
“I did.” Ophelia paused. “She just smiled.”
Klein: “...Fair enough.”
The sea breeze grew stronger. Ophelia’s hair was blown in front of her left shoulder, with a strand resting on her collarbone. She raised her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear in a quick motion.
About two or three minutes passed. Ophelia saw it first.
Her right hand lifted from the hilt, pointing straight ahead.
Klein looked in the direction she was pointing—where the sea met the sky, a silhouette that didn't belong to the waves appeared on the gray-blue water.
A ship.
And not just any ship.
The silhouette was ridiculously large. Even with just a section of the bow visible, it already took up more visual space than all the ships currently docked at the pier combined. As the distance closed, the number of masts became discernible—one, two, four.
Klein squinted.
“That size...” he muttered to himself, leaving the sentence unfinished.
Nelisa’s voice came from behind him, her tone flat as if she were rattling off a list: “The Voyager, belonging to the royal family. There is no registration for it in the Silver Scale Chamber of Commerce's fleet archives.”
Klein looked back at her.
Nelisa met his gaze with a straight face, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her—the chamber president was also seeing this ship for the first time.
The full view of the giant ship was gradually emerging from behind the horizon. The hull sat deep in the water, pushing out waves that billowed to both sides, with white wakes visible from afar.
...
...
Diancie stood at the bow.
The wind whipped her cloak, and the royal crest shimmered in the sunlight. She raised her hand and waved at the people on the dock—the motion was grand, carrying an unabashed excitement.
Then her hand froze in mid-air for a beat.
As if suddenly reminded of something by someone whispering in her ear, she pulled her arm back and returned it to her back. Her spine straightened, and her chin lifted slightly, adopting the air of "Her Highness has arrived."
Unfortunately, it was too late.
Klein had witnessed the entire transformation, which took less than three seconds.
He didn't laugh. He had always been good at managing his expressions.
Beside him, Ophelia turned her head, her gaze meeting his. Neither said a word, but the meaning in that look was clear—I saw it.
Although the ship looked close, it was still a considerable distance away. A normal vessel would have taken quite a while to dock from that position.
But The Voyager didn't follow common logic.
Its speed was unreasonably fast.
Klein’s gaze followed the waterline down, and sure enough—near the waterline on both sides of the hull, he could vaguely see rows of tightly packed runes. It wasn't the common wind-based propulsion array; the flow of the patterns was closer to a water-based diversion structure.
Turning water from resistance into thrust. It was a clever idea.
The ship’s docking process was crisp and efficient. For such a massive vessel, its deceleration and turning were excessively precise, and it finally pulled alongside the dock without even a hint of a buffer, stopping steadily.
The stone slabs of the dock didn't even vibrate.
Klein looked up and began to scan the entire ship from bottom to top.
He didn't recognize all the materials used for the hull. The outer layer looked like some kind of deep-sea hardwood, but the grain was unusual. It was either a special species or had undergone some kind of alchemical treatment.
He leaned toward the latter because a very faint metallic luster remained on the wood's surface.
The keel wasn't visible, but judging by the curves of the hull, the internal load-bearing structure likely used a composite frame of cast iron and some light alloy. Wood alone couldn't support a ship of this size.
What truly kept his eyes fixed were the masts.
The surfaces of the four masts were covered in spells. It wasn't a simple overlay—the arrays on each mast had an interconnected relationship, with the end of the runes on the first mast corresponding to the start of the runes on the second mast in space.
Four masts, four sets of arrays, combining to form a complete, large-scale composite spell.
The royal family's foundation was deeper than he had imagined.
Klein took another two steps forward, wanting to get a clearer look at a particularly dense runic cluster halfway up the third mast—the way the lines were arranged there was something he had truly never seen before. It didn't resemble any known school of spells, nor did it look like a purely decorative pattern.
As he was identifying it, his view was suddenly blocked.
Two guards wearing royal-issue armor had disembarked at some point and stood side by side in front of him, completely cutting off his line of sight to the ship.
One of them rested a hand on his hilt. It wasn't a gesture of drawing the sword, but the posture itself was a warning.
Klein blinked.
The Voyager was a royal ship. He, an outsider, stood there studying the ship from head to toe, inside and out—if he were the guard, he would have stopped him too.
The logic was sound.
But the feeling of being blocked wasn't great, especially since he had only seen half of that runic cluster on the third mast.
“Mr. Klein.” Diancie’s voice came from behind, a distance away, as she walked down the gangway. “What are you looking at?”
Klein withdrew his gaze and turned around.
“Looking at the ship,” he answered honestly.
Only, it would have been fine if Diancie hadn't mentioned his name, but now that she had—
Both guards looked at Klein simultaneously.
That look was no longer just one of alertness. Klein had seen plenty of alertness; the hand would stay on the hilt, and the center of gravity would shift forward, ready to react. But these two were different. Their hands relaxed from their hilts, and their stances were no longer so tense, yet the way they looked at him became even more complex—
Klein found it hard to describe, but he had a general guess.
Sure enough, one of the guards reacted first, turning to Diancie and speaking with his voice lowered half a beat: “Highness, the Klein you mentioned—is he that Klein?”
“Which one?” Diancie asked back.
The guard opened his mouth, then turned his gaze back to Klein, looking him up and down. There was a very specific disappointment in that look—not the kind for an enemy, but the "This is him?" kind of disappointment a veteran feels when seeing a comrade's future husband.
The other guard was much more direct than his companion. He gave Diancie a military salute, but the question he asked was completely outside Klein’s expectations: “Highness, since Mr. Klein is here, then Lady Ophelia—”
He didn't finish his sentence.
Because Ophelia had already walked over.
Her pace wasn't fast. The sea breeze on the dock blew her golden hair back, revealing her full profile. She walked to Klein’s left side and stopped naturally, standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
The two guards’ gazes snapped toward her.
Ophelia didn't look at them. Her gaze rested on the face of the guard who had spoken, asking flatly, “What do you want with me?”
The dock was silent for about two seconds.
The expressions of those two guards changed almost in sync—first confusion, then doubt, and finally a very slow-developing, uncertain shock.
They didn't recognize her.
This was only natural. During the battles on the West Coast, when Ophelia was killing sea monsters on the front lines, she was fully armored, with even her visor down. The number of people who had actually seen her remove her helmet on the battlefield could be counted on one hand.
Most soldiers' impression of her remained that of a silver-white suit of armor stained with sea monster blood and her back as she cut down sea beasts on the crests of waves.
This young golden-haired woman before them, wearing an everyday dress, without armor, without even a scabbard for a sword—no, wait, there was a blade hanging at her waist. But that image was too far removed from the "Ophelia of the West Coast" in their minds.
The two guards almost simultaneously whipped their gazes toward Diancie.
Diancie stood to the side with her arms crossed. She said nothing, but she didn't shake her head either.
A muffled syllable came from the guard’s throat, as if he wanted to call her "My Lady" or say something else, but ultimately no complete word came out.
His right fist rose and struck heavily against his left breastplate—the standard imperial military salute.
the younger guard beside him was half a beat slower, but he followed suit.
The force of the salute was a bit much. The breastplate let out a dull thud, and a metallic echo rang out across the dock.
Ophelia watched them, and after a moment, she gave a slight nod.
There were no extra words. But the angle and speed of that nod were just right. Klein watched from the side, thinking that this person had probably received more military salutes than the number of pages of alchemical literature he had ever read; responding to such a scene was carved into her muscle memory.
Then the two guards’ gazes drifted back to him.
That expression was back.
Exactly the same as before—it wasn't hostility. Hostility was too strong and inaccurate. To be precise, it was the look of two long-time faithful believers who suddenly discovered that someone they didn't recognize had appeared beside the statue they worshipped, and that person was holding the deed.
Diancie probably saw that the atmosphere was heading in a strange direction and stepped in to smooth things over.
“Quite a few members of the guard on The Voyager were transferred from the West Coast divisions.” Her tone lightened as she looked at Klein with an air of introduction. “Back then, the Imperial Navy fought the sea monsters on the West Coast for a long time. Ophelia’s name in the military—how should I put it—carries a lot of weight.”
Klein nodded. He had figured it out without needing Diancie’s explanation.
The West Coast. The military merit and prestige Ophelia had single-handedly carried probably reached some unspeakable height within the Imperial Navy. And he—Klein, a minor rural noble—was, in the minds of these soldiers, simply the man who had "taken Lady Ophelia."
There were no prefixes. Not Klein the Mage, not Klein the Alchemist, not even the Sage.
Just "that man."
He turned to look at Ophelia.
Ophelia didn't look back, but the curve of her lips changed slightly—a tiny change that was impossible to notice if one wasn't paying attention.
She was suppressing a smile.
Klein withdrew his gaze and calmly faced the still-complex stares of the two guards opposite him.
A very light cough came from Nelisa behind him, though it was unclear if she had been choked by the wind or was masking some other reaction.
Rate on N.U.
