Ever since getting into the car, Bai Liu had been smelling a heavy fishy stench coming from the front seats. At first, he had assumed it came from Andre, who had practically stuffed himself with rotten fish steaks that morning. He hadn’t expected the source to actually be the driver.
The fishy odor he’d noticed in the car yesterday had probably come from the driver as well—but compared to today, it was nowhere near the same intensity.
The stench clinging to the driver now was far stronger.
Bai Liu quietly studied him from head to toe. This driver... felt very much like some kind of monster.
[Warning!! Player identification error! This NPC is not a monster! It cannot be recorded in the Monster Book!]
[Current state: Alienated.]
[Player identification error. This NPC’s trust level toward the player has sharply decreased and may result in aggressive behavior.]
The driver slowly tore off another bite of the sandwich in his hand. His wandering pupils shifted toward Bai Liu for a moment before he suddenly asked in a sinister tone, “...Do you think I smell disgusting?”
Inwardly, Bai Liu answered yes without hesitation. Outwardly, however, he denied it at once. “No.”
“The way you look at me is the same way people look at monsters.” The driver gave a dark sneer. “Damn rich people. Always so arrogant.”
After saying that, he turned back to his sandwich and ignored Bai Liu completely.
Tsk. Troublesome.
Bai Liu’s expression remained calm, but inwardly he assessed the situation instantly. Getting information had suddenly become much more difficult.
And forcing information out of the driver was impossible. The system panel had already warned him that the driver could become aggressive toward him.
Bai Liu glanced sideways at Lucy and softly coaxed her into asking instead.
The driver gave an annoyed snort, but he still answered Lucy’s questions.
“The attractions in Siren Town are naturally related to merfolk.”
The smile on the driver’s face made one’s skin crawl. His pupils rolled restlessly inside the whites of his eyes, making it impossible to tell who exactly he was looking at.
“Our fishing activity doesn’t involve ordinary fish. We hold a special mermaid-catching event, but it only takes place at night. And our wax museum isn’t ordinary either. The merfolk we catch are turned into wax statues and displayed there.”
“The very first merman skeleton ever caught is preserved in the museum.”
“A mermaid-catching event?” Bai Liu asked. “You’ve actually caught merfolk before?”
The driver ignored him completely.
Only after Lucy repeated the question did he finally respond.
“Yes.” The driver smiled meaningfully. “Although aside from the first one—which was an exceptionally beautiful merman—the ones caught later were all defective, low-grade specimens with incomplete forms. Still, they were genuine merfolk.”
Andre immediately snorted in disdain. “What a load of nonsense. That’s obviously just a tourist gimmick. Don’t tell me you idiots actually believe it.”
Jeff opened his mouth as though he wanted to argue, but after hesitating for a moment, he shut it again. Most likely, getting beaten by Andre earlier had frightened him into silence.
Lucy, however, was another matter entirely. She shot Andre an irritated glare and declared loudly, “I believe it!” Then she turned toward Bai Liu with puffed cheeks. “What about you?”
“Seeing is believing,” Bai Liu replied evenly. “We’ll know once we see the fishing event tonight.”
Andre might restrain himself around Lucy, but with Bai Liu he wanted to retaliate against every word.
“I just hope,” Andre sneered maliciously, “certain people don’t use the fishing trip tonight as an excuse to cry and run away halfway through.”
A vicious grin spread across his face as his eyes swept over Bai Liu.
“If you scream and fall overboard, and the fishermen drag you up thinking you’re a merman to turn into a wax statue, don’t expect any of us to save you.”
Andre shrugged theatrically, already looking as though he could picture Bai Liu drowning at sea.
Only then did Bai Liu remember the bet still hanging between him and Andre.
He had managed to pry the details out of Lucy earlier that morning.
Andre and Bai Liu were supposed to each rent a small canoe and drift alone overnight on the Siren Sea. Whoever lost their nerve and returned first would be considered a coward—and therefore unworthy of Lucy.
Lucy herself clearly disliked the entire arrangement, but unfortunately the character Bai Liu was playing was apparently the stubborn, reckless type who insisted on participating.
In a horror game themed around merfolk, the open sea at night was unquestionably one of the worst possible places to be.
Bai Liu had absolutely no intention of venturing into the ocean with a physically stronger man who clearly wanted him dead before fully understanding the situation. He had no doubt whatsoever that if Andre encountered his boat offshore, he would happily overturn it and leave him to drown.
And Bai Liu couldn’t swim.
To some extent, things like merfolk, sirens, or sea monsters were far less terrifying to him than the sea itself.
Unless absolutely necessary, Bai Liu would never willingly approach deep water.
His expression unconsciously revealed his rejection of this absurd bet.
Andre burst into mocking laughter. “Look at that. Our precious young master. Other than having money, what exactly do you have that’s better than me? You don’t even dare go out to sea.”
Bai Liu nodded sincerely. “Aside from being rich, I really am useless.”
But being rich alone was already enough to make him happy. Even virtual currency brought him satisfaction.
Andre: “...”
Why did this bastard look like he’d just received a compliment?
Andre let out a cold laugh. “So if you refuse to go, does that mean you’re giving Lucy up?”
Just as Bai Liu was about to be completely honest and declare he had zero interest in participating in this suicidal activity, the coin hanging against his chest suddenly vibrated. A system notification popped up before his eyes.
[Side Quest Triggered: [The Boat of True Love]]
[Player Bai Liu must complete the bet before leaving Siren Town and defeat Andre.]
[Reward: 100 points.]
Bai Liu: “...”
One hundred points.
The instant he saw the reward amount, his desire for money overwhelmed his fear of the ocean.
“No,” Bai Liu replied calmly. “I’m going. And I’ll definitely win.”
Lucy immediately threw her arms around him, touched beyond words. “Baby! Once you come back tonight, we have to spend a wonderful evening together.”
Bai Liu silently removed her hand from his arm.
The driver glanced back at them. “You should visit the wax museum during the day first. The mermaid-catching event won’t begin until tonight.”
Everyone agreed.
The driver navigated the car through a series of winding roads before eventually circling behind a beach.
Scattered across the shore were countless dried remains.
The driver explained that this was where the merfolk were caught. The remains were fragments left over from captured merfolk—those too damaged to preserve had simply been discarded here.
Bai Liu could indeed make out large fish-tail skeletons and scattered bleached-white skulls strewn haphazardly across the beach. Nearby, several fishing nets hung out to dry.
A few fishermen emerged to gather the bones and nets. As they looked up and met Bai Liu’s gaze, he finally got a proper look at the townspeople in daylight.
And their appearance was deeply unsettling.
They resembled the driver in a strange way, yet looked even more grotesque and less human than he did.
The whites of their eyes were unnaturally pale and swollen-looking, while their pupils had shrunk to tiny mung-bean-sized dots drifting aimlessly around their sockets.
Their eyes sat unusually far apart, almost near the sides of their heads by the ears, reminding Bai Liu of catfish.
Gray-black marbling spread from around their eyes all the way down their necks. Even their movements under the sunlight looked sluggish and unnatural. As they walked, the tops of their feet dragged repeatedly against the sand, as though something there itched unbearably.
And if Bai Liu wasn’t mistaken, faint green scales seemed to be peeling loose from the tops of their feet.
As the car passed by, the fishermen all turned toward it and smiled sluggishly, stupidly—like starving children catching the scent of food.
Even Lucy looked frightened by them. She muttered under her breath, “They look so weird...”
Compared to the driver, these fishermen looked even less human. Rather than people, they resembled some kind of grotesquely mutated deep-sea fish.
The driver swallowed the final bite of his foul-smelling sandwich and grinned, revealing teeth blackened with fish paste.
“Really? Everyone here looks like this. Probably because we eat so much seafood. Not exactly healthy.”
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. These townspeople felt very much like monsters as well—but halfway through the thought, he stopped himself.
He had already misidentified the driver once.
The driver had clearly looked non-human, yet the Monster Book refused to classify him as a monster. Since these townspeople resembled the driver so closely, there was a strong possibility they also failed to meet the game’s criteria for monsters. If he accidentally provoked the hostility of an entire town full of them, the consequences would be disastrous.
Still, Bai Liu was not naïve enough to truly believe these grotesque townspeople were harmless humans.
There were only two possibilities for something not being classified as a monster:
First—it genuinely wasn’t one.
Second—it had not yet fully reached the standards required for the Monster Book’s judgment.
This instance, “Siren Town,” clearly revolved around the concepts of [Hatching] and [Alienation]. The merman wax statues could hatch, and Andre had already entered an alienated state that morning. These townspeople also appeared to be midway through some sort of transformation process, trapped in a half-human, half-other state.
As for what those states eventually became, Bai Liu didn’t know yet.
His guess was monsters. But he needed proof.
Slowly, Bai Liu shifted his gaze toward Andre in the seat ahead of him.
It wasn’t that Bai Liu had been incapable of saving Andre the previous night.
But from Bai Liu’s perspective, an NPC like Andre—someone openly hostile toward him—had far greater value dead than alive.
Watching the driver savor the last traces of fish meat on his fingers, Andre’s appetite visibly surged again. His eyes glazed over as he swallowed heavily, irritably scratching at the itching skin on his cheek.
Then he glared resentfully at Bai Liu through the rearview mirror.
Bai Liu was so rich, so why wouldn’t he even let him eat a few more fish steaks? He was starving now. Just seeing the food in the driver’s hands made him want to snatch it away and devour it himself.
But the driver ate quickly. Before Andre could act, the sandwich was already gone. The driver leaned back in satisfaction, rubbing his stomach blissfully.
Watching him lick the remaining fish scraps from the corners of his mouth, Andre once again recalled the moist, tender texture of those fish steaks. His saliva kept pooling uncontrollably. His throat bobbed as he swallowed again and again.
He had never eaten fish that delicious before.
No—not just the fish steaks. Every kind of fish in Siren Town tasted unbelievably good. Once he started eating, he simply couldn’t stop.
The driver sighed in satisfaction. “Delicious. Only the fish in Siren Town taste this good.”
Lucy nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! I’ve never had fish this fresh before.”
“No.” The driver’s smile grew increasingly eerie. “Freshness isn’t what makes the fish in Siren Town delicious. In fact, it tastes terrible when eaten fresh. It has to rot first—then be specially marinated and processed.”
The driver slowly curled his lips into a strange smile.
“What you’ve been eating is a very special ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) kind of fish. A fish that exists nowhere else in the world.”
Lucy blinked curiously. “What kind of fish?”
The driver answered:
“Merman.”
