From the moment Bai Liu boarded the car, an overpowering stench of fish wafted from the front seat. He had assumed it came from Andre, who had gorged himself on rotten fish fillets that morning, but to his surprise, the source was the driver.
It dawned on him that the fishy odor he'd noticed in the car yesterday must also have belonged to the driver—though today, the reek was far more intense, almost suffocating.
Bai Liu cast a sidelong glance at the driver. This man… surely, he must be some kind of monster.
[Warning!! Player identification error! This NPC is not a monster! Cannot be entered into the Monster Book! He is merely in a state of aberration!]
[Player identification error. This NPC's trust in the player is plummeting and he may become hostile.]
The driver tore off a piece of his sandwich with deliberate slowness, his restless eyes lingering on Bai Liu. Suddenly, his tone turned harsh: "…Do you find my smell disgusting?"
Bai Liu's true answer was yes, but outwardly he hastened to deny it. "No."
"You look at me as if I were some kind of monster. Hah. Arrogant, damned rich boy," the driver muttered darkly, turning away to eat, ignoring any further questions.
Troublesome, Bai Liu thought, his expression unreadable. Extracting information would now be much more difficult.
He couldn't risk pressing the driver further—the system panel had already warned that the man might attack him.
Bai Liu turned to Lucy, whispered a few words, and coaxed her into questioning the driver instead.
The driver snorted, but answered Lucy's inquiry.
"All the attractions in Siren Town are tied to mermaids," he replied, his smile sending a chill down the spine. His eyes darted erratically in their sockets, making it impossible to tell whom he was addressing.
"Our fishing isn't for ordinary fish. We hold special mermaid hunts, always at night. And our wax museum is no ordinary museum—we display the mermaids we catch, preserved as wax statues for all to see."
"The very first mermaid skeleton we ever caught is still on display in the museum."
"Mermaid hunts?" Bai Liu asked. "You've actually caught mermaids?"
The driver ignored him.
Only after Lucy repeated the question did the driver respond, a cryptic smile curling his lips. "Yes. Though apart from the first, which was a truly beautiful mermaid, the rest we've hauled in since have been inferior, malformed, incomplete. But mermaids, nonetheless."
Andre snorted in disdain. "What a farce. You don't actually believe this nonsense, do you?"
Jelf opened his mouth as if to speak, but quickly shut it again—no doubt cowed by the beating he'd received from Andre that morning.
Lucy, however, was undeterred. She shot Andre a look of indignation and declared loudly, "I believe it! What about you, Bai Liu?" She turned to him, eyes blazing.
"Seeing is believing," Bai Liu replied coolly. "We'll know the truth after tonight's fishing."
Andre, unwilling to challenge Lucy, turned his scorn on Bai Liu, his words dripping with malice: "Let's hope some people don't start bawling and run away when it's time for the hunt tonight."
A wicked grin twisted his face as his gaze swept over Bai Liu. "If you scream and fall overboard, and the fishermen mistake you for a mermaid and haul you up to make a wax statue, don't expect us to save you."
He shrugged theatrically, his smile full of ill intent, as if already savoring the image of Bai Liu floundering in the water.
Bai Liu recalled the wager he and Andre had yet to settle that night—a detail he'd only managed to extract from Lucy that morning.
The bet was this: he and Andre would each rent a canoe and drift overnight on the Siren Sea. Whoever gave up and returned first would be branded a coward, unworthy of Lucy.
Lucy herself wanted no part in this contest, but Bai Liu's role demanded stubborn insistence.
In a horror game centered on "mermaids," the midnight sea was a place of unspeakable dread.
Bai Liu had no intention of venturing into such waters with a man as cunning and hostile as Andre, especially when he had no idea what awaited him. He had no doubt that, given the chance, Andre would capsize his boat and leave him to drown.
Bai Liu couldn't swim.
To him, the sea itself was far more terrifying than any mermaid or siren.
Unless absolutely necessary, he would never approach the water.
His expression betrayed his aversion to the so-called wager.
Andre burst out laughing, his mockery unrestrained. "Look at him—our young master. What do you have besides money? You don't even dare set foot on the sea."
Bai Liu nodded with genuine pleasure. "Money is all I have, and it's more than enough."
Even virtual currency brought him satisfaction.
Andre: "…"
Why did he look as if he'd just been praised?
Andre sneered, "So you're giving up on Lucy, then?"
Bai Liu was about to refuse outright when the coin at his chest vibrated, and a mission prompt appeared:
[Side Quest Triggered: "The Ship of True Love." Player Bai Liu must complete the wager before leaving Siren Town and defeat Andre to earn 100 points.]
Bai Liu: "…"
A hundred points—such a generous reward!
His desire for money instantly eclipsed his fear of water. Bai Liu replied coolly, "No, I'll go. And I'll make sure to win."
Lucy, moved, threw her arms around him. "Oh, darling, when you come back, let's spend a wonderful night together."
Bai Liu quietly removed her hands.
The driver turned his head. "You should visit our wax museum during the day. The mermaid hunt only takes place at night."
Everyone agreed.
The driver wound his way along a twisting road behind a beach.
On the sand, Bai Liu saw countless sun-bleached remains.
The driver explained that this was where the mermaids were caught, and the scattered remnants belonged to those too mangled to be preserved—simply discarded on the shore.
Bai Liu saw massive fish tails and bleached skulls strewn haphazardly across the sand, with fishing nets drying nearby.
Fishermen emerged to gather the bones and nets, pausing to meet Bai Liu's gaze. He hadn't noticed the townsfolk's appearance in the darkness last night, but now, in daylight…
Their features were bizarre, eerily reminiscent of the driver, yet even more grotesque and inhuman.
Their sclerae were unnaturally white, their pupils mere pinpricks that wandered aimlessly. Their eyes were set so far apart they seemed to grow from the sides of their heads, like catfish.
Gray-black marbling spread from their eyes down their necks, and their movements in the sunlight were sluggish, their feet scraping the sand as if plagued by an itch.
If Bai Liu wasn't mistaken, green scales clung to their feet, half-shed and clinging.
As Bai Liu's car passed, they offered him a vacant, childlike smile, as if scenting food.
Lucy, unnerved, whispered, "They look so strange."
Indeed, these fishermen were far stranger than the driver—less like people, more like some bizarre species of deep-sea fish.
The driver swallowed the last bite of his pungent sandwich, flashing a grin full of blackened, fish-flecked teeth. "Is that so? Everyone here looks like this. Maybe it's because we eat all kinds of fish—probably not very healthy."
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes. These townsfolk certainly resembled monsters, but he stopped himself short.
He'd already misidentified the driver.
Though both the driver and the townsfolk were clearly inhuman, the driver could not be entered into the Monster Book. These townsfolk, similar as they were, might also fall outside the game's definition of monsters. To provoke their collective hostility would be no trivial matter.
Still, Bai Liu wasn't naïve enough to believe these peculiar townsfolk were truly harmless.
There were two possibilities: either they genuinely weren't monsters, or they simply hadn't met the Monster Book's criteria.
Siren Town had a peculiar mechanic: "hatching" and "aberration." The mermaid wax statues could hatch, Andre was in a state of aberration that morning, and these townsfolk seemed to be undergoing some kind of transformation, which explained their grotesque appearance.
What these states ultimately meant, Bai Liu could not say. He suspected they were monsters, but needed proof.
His gaze drifted to Andre, seated in front of him.
Last night, he could have saved Andre.
But for Bai Liu, an NPC with hostile tendencies was worth more dead than alive.
Andre watched the driver suck the last bits of fish from his fingers, his own hunger mounting uncontrollably. He swallowed hard, eyes glazed, scratching at his perpetually itching jaw.
He shot Bai Liu a venomous look in the rearview mirror.
Why, he wondered, was Bai Liu so rich, yet so stingy with the fish fillets? He was so hungry now that he could barely restrain himself from snatching the food from the driver's hands.
But the driver ate quickly, and before Andre could act, he'd finished, rubbing his belly in satisfaction.
Watching the driver lick the last morsels from his lips, Andre's mouth watered, his throat bobbing involuntarily. He had never tasted fish so delicious.
No, it wasn't just the fillets—every fish dish here was so exquisitely prepared he couldn't stop eating.
The driver sighed contentedly. "Delicious. Only the fish of Siren Town taste this good."
Lucy agreed, "Yes, I've never had fish so fresh and tasty."
"No, it's not freshness," the driver replied, his smile turning sinister. "The secret of Siren Town's fish isn't freshness at all. In fact, fresh fish aren't nearly as good. They must rot, be cured and specially prepared. What you're eating is a very special kind of fish, found nowhere else but here."
Lucy asked curiously, "What kind of fish?"
The driver replied, "Mermaid."