While browsing the shop earlier, Bai Liu had noticed a high-demand item called [Underwater Bubble].
It allowed players to breathe underwater while floating safely inside a bubble for two full hours. It could also repel fish-like creatures and prevent them from approaching.
The item itself wasn’t bad.
But it cost more than seventy points, could only be used twice, and was a consumable.
In Bai Liu’s extremely demanding opinion, aside from allowing underwater breathing, the thing had almost no additional value whatsoever. Selling it for over seventy points was outright robbery.
Anyone who bought it was simply paying an “IQ tax” to the game shop.
Naturally, this had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Bai Liu couldn’t swim and had no intention of jumping into the sea.
It was purely because, as a born Grandet, he would never waste money so carelessly, nor would he willingly follow a game route he considered aesthetically unappealing.
***
Bai Liu lifted his eyes toward the warehouse entrance.
As expected, the door creaked faintly, as though someone had returned to lock it.
An ordinary player would have panicked at this point and immediately tried to flee, desperate to get away from the eerie white statues filling the room.
Bai Liu, however, calmly switched off his flashlight.
Then he walked directly into the middle of the statues, crouched in a dark corner, removed ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) his coat, and wrapped the gray cloth lying on the floor around his lower body.
Motionless, he disguised himself as another wax statue.
The cocoon-state mermaid statues seemed to possess rather poor vision as well. They blankly searched for Bai Liu for a while, then gradually stopped moving once they failed to find him.
The warehouse door rattled several times before slowly opening.
Two sailors carrying dim yellow oil lamps descended the stairs, speaking in low, hoarse whispers.
“Check the statue count...”
“We’ve counted several times already. There shouldn’t be any mistakes...”
“After tonight, there’ll be four more statues here. Send those four tourists to the wax museum first. The statues there have been guarding the Siren King for too long. It’s time for them to retrieve their amulets and come out for some activity...”
“Guard the Siren King carefully. Whatever happens, don’t let him wake up and return to the sea. Otherwise, all of us will...”
The sailors stopped at the stairway overlooking the warehouse.
Holding old-fashioned oil lamps, they stared vacantly into the darkness below.
In the dim, insufficient light, Bai Liu found it difficult to tell whether these sailor-shaped figures were humans or statues themselves.
They were too pale.
Not pale in the sense of sickly human skin, but a lifeless, opaque white devoid of all blood.
Even under the lamp’s glow, no veins were visible on their skin.
Definitely not human.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes slightly as he observed them.
But something still felt off.
The sailors retained mostly human forms, yet the Monster Book referred to them as [Merman Sailors].
A faint sense of unease rose in Bai Liu’s chest.
One of the sailors was the same man who had warned Bai Liu’s group not to wander the deck earlier.
His eyes were dull and stiff, as though incapable of movement.
“Confirmed the amulets are intact?” he asked mechanically. “If they’re fine, lock them up properly. If the ship rocks too violently later and one gets smashed...”
He paused.
“Last time an amulet broke, that sailor still hasn’t been able to come ashore.”
The two sailors began fastening chains around the statues one by one.
Bai Liu silently held his breath.
His gaze fixed itself on the still-open warehouse door as he slowly edged toward it.
Then—
One sailor suddenly froze.
As though hearing something whispered by the statues, he frowned and turned his head.
“You said you saw a tourist come in here?”
Bai Liu’s expression darkened slightly.
A miscalculation.
He hadn’t expected the sailors to actually communicate with their own amulet statues.
So the chase sequence was unavoidable after all.
Still, this was better than being discovered on the deck. At least there were only two sailors down here.
Bai Liu’s thoughts raced rapidly.
His stamina was terrible. If this turned into a normal chase, he would absolutely die. That was precisely why he’d tried to avoid triggering one from the beginning.
Unexpectedly, it had become a dead-end loop.
Whether he stayed or escaped, a pursuit was inevitable.
Running was impossible.
Going upstairs was even worse—there were more sailors waiting above. At that point, it wouldn’t be a chase sequence anymore. It would be a full-scale mob attack that would force him into the sea.
And Bai Liu very much did not want to jump into the ocean.
So what now?
Calmly, Bai Liu continued thinking.
One sailor slowly approached him.
Suddenly, as though hearing something deeply amusing, the sailor let out a low laugh that echoed eerily through the hold.
“I didn’t expect our distinguished guest to move in ahead of schedule.”
The sailor wandered through the darkness with his oil lamp.
The upward glow distorted his face grotesquely, making his smile appear even more sinister.
“There’s no need to rush,” he murmured softly. “Sooner or later, you’ll belong here too.”
As he spoke, he searched each corner of the warehouse with the dim lantern light.
“Please come out now,” he continued pleasantly. “The nightly fishing ceremony is about to begin.”
“The mermen are waiting for you beneath the sea.”
Bai Liu’s thoughts accelerated.
These sailors were clearly far more troublesome than the statues.
The sailors themselves were monsters too.
But what was their weakness?
Within seconds, the sailor had nearly reached him.
Bai Liu acted immediately.
He pulled out his flashlight and shone it directly into the sailor’s face.
Unfortunately, the sailor merely lifted a hand to shield his eyes briefly before lowering it again indifferently.
The smile on his face only deepened.
“We’re different from those things,” he said softly.
“We aren’t afraid of light.”
So light wasn’t the weakness.
Their reaction to strong illumination looked no different from a normal human’s.
Bai Liu’s thoughts spun rapidly.
The instant he lowered the flashlight, he grabbed the alcohol barrel behind him and smashed it directly into the sailor.
The barrel exploded apart with a crash.
Yet the sailor barely moved.
Their outer shells were absurdly hard. Unlike the mermaid statues, they possessed none of those obvious vulnerabilities.
It truly felt as though they had broken free from cocoons and been reborn into entirely new creatures.
The sailor stared straight at Bai Liu in the darkness before suddenly grabbing his wrist.
Tilting his head, he smiled bizarrely.
His mouth was filled with fine, densely packed, razor-sharp teeth.
“Come, guest,” he whispered.
“Let us watch the fishing together.”
“From beneath the sea.”
Bai Liu met the sailor’s eyes calmly.
The sailor clearly wasn’t invincible in the same sense as the Siren King.
The system had not announced them as unbeatable monsters, which meant players should theoretically possess a method of resistance.
Otherwise, the game would be impossible to clear.
Yet physical attacks were ineffective.
Light attacks were ineffective too.
That shouldn’t have been the case.
According to Bai Liu’s earlier deductions, both the mermaid sailors and the mermaids themselves should fear light. Otherwise, they wouldn’t exclusively appear at night.
And Bai Liu was certain his reasoning wasn’t wrong.
The mermaid statues’ reaction to strong light had already proven it.
Yet these sailors faced direct illumination without fear.
Which meant—
Something else was protecting their weakness.
Earlier, the receptionist had mentioned that amulets could block damage.
Bai Liu’s thoughts flashed together instantly.
His gaze swept across the surrounding statues until he located the sailor’s matching amulet.
A tiny crack had appeared on the statue’s head where the alcohol barrel had struck earlier.
The statue’s expression had changed as well.
Its face twisted in pain while its hands shielded its eyes, as though it were the one directly exposed to the flashlight beam.
Bai Liu’s eyes sharpened instantly.
Without hesitation, he pivoted sharply and kicked the sailor’s amulet statue directly in the face.
The statue shattered apart with a loud crash.
Foul-smelling black blood spilled from inside.
Behind Bai Liu, the sailor gripping his wrist suddenly released an ear-piercing scream—a shrill, high-frequency cry resembling some monstrous deep-sea fish.
The sound stabbed painfully into Bai Liu’s ears.
It was as though the sailor’s outer shell had cracked open.
Fragments resembling crumbling lime began falling from his body, exposing the creature hidden beneath.
Since he’d already started, Bai Liu saw no reason to stop halfway.
He dragged out the second sailor’s amulet statue as well, seized it by the head, and smashed it against his knee.
It shattered instantly.
The sailors themselves possessed terrifyingly strong bodies.
But the statues acting as their amulets were fragile as eggshells.
No wonder they had to be stored carefully in the cargo hold.
Both sailors shrieked violently.
The corpse-white color drained from their skin, replaced by sickly green-black flesh. Their eyes shifted sideways across their faces until they rested near their temples.
An overpowering fish stench filled the room.
Their lower bodies twisted into slimy, mottled eel-like tails.
Their mouths opened wide, revealing rows of jagged serrated teeth.
Crouching low, they lunged forward on grotesquely swollen arms, scuttling toward Bai Liu with terrifying speed like giant lizards.
Bai Liu immediately raised the flashlight again and shone it directly at them.
This time, the sailors recoiled violently, trembling and screaming even more sharply than before.
Once their protective amulets were destroyed, strong light finally became effective.
Standing on the stairs, Bai Liu slowly retreated while keeping the flashlight trained on the creatures crawling across the floor.
The sailors crouched low in the darkness, shrinking away from the beam while hissing furiously, unwilling to retreat yet unable to approach him.
Bai Liu backed out of the cargo hold without turning around.
Then he slammed the warehouse door shut and locked it.
Even through the closed door, he could still hear the horrible scraping sound of fish tails dragging across the floor.
It sounded like a nest of giant snakes trapped beneath the ship.
The warehouse door shook violently under repeated impacts.
[“Siren Town Monster Book” Updated — Merman Sailor (3/4)]
[Monster Name: Merman Sailor (Butterfly State)]
[Weakness: Strong Light, Amulet (2/3)]
[Attack Method: Biting and Clawing (scratches carry a certain probability of triggering Alienation)]
Bai Liu calmly straightened his collar and walked up from the cargo hold stairs.
Lucy immediately spotted him.
Hooking her arm around his, she complained coquettishly:
“Where did you disappear to? They said the fishing’s about to begin.”
“We’ve already reached that part of the sea.”
Lucy smiled.
Fish-scale patterns had already appeared across her face, and in the darkness, her eyes reflected a strange scaled sheen.
The hand clutching Bai Liu felt rough, damp, and unnaturally slimy.
Without a word, Bai Liu quietly removed her hand from his arm.
“Is that so?” he asked.
“Yes,” Lucy replied with a hoarse laugh.
“The mermen are here.”
