Chapter 655 — The Crisis, Neatly Arranged

The siren lady raised her head and looked at the figure approaching her. The other was dressed in a plain white gown, her grey-white hair coiled at the back of her head, a wide-brimmed sun hat of the sort lately fashionable in the Southern Region in her hand, a striking scar on her cheek. She was a familiar person:

Miss Jenny Perot, director of the Rune Research Institute and the Cecil's chief rune expert.

Tyr rubbed her eyes. "Aren't you going to say goodbye to your friends?"

"There's nothing to say goodbye for—I'll be back soon enough anyway," Jenny said with a slow, gentle smile. "I came to greet you..."

"This habit of yours, using honorifics with everyone, really takes some getting used to," Tyr yawned. "What's there to greet me about... I'm sunbathing here."

"Thank you for being willing to entrust those mysterious runes of yours to us for study. Word from the front says the runes have indeed been effective, and many soldiers' lives have been saved," Jenny said, bowing her head in all sincerity. "To our shame, we can only apply them crudely; to this day we have not cracked the secret of those runes..."

"Then you'll have to crack it slowly, because even we don't know how those runes work," Tyr said, patting the ground with her tail. "Maybe one day, when there's a chance, I'll take you to see the big squid—study the patterns on that thing's surface and you'll figure it out... Your ways of thinking and perceiving are different from us sirens', so maybe you'll see things we can't?"

Jenny smiled at once. "I look forward to that day."

"Never mind that," Tyr said, propping up her upper body and balancing unsteadily on her fish tail as she glanced at the mechanical ship not far off. "...Bound for that Holy Frost Roost place, is it? Where Gao Yang is?"

"...Yes," Jenny said, seeming to pause a moment before she spoke. "They need a great many hands there to restore order. Besides, the Duke needs a contingent of scholars to sort through the royal archives and the records of the Mages' Association, in preparation for taking over Ansus's technological legacy... I have been ordered to lead a team of rune experts there to help."

"I hear you're from that city," Tyr said, watching this friend she had made during their exchanges on technical matters with curiosity, the tip of her fish tail beating absently against the concrete. "Do you have people you know there?"

People she knew...

Jenny fell briefly silent, then turned her head to look at the White Water River shimmering under the gentle breeze, at the mechanical ship retracting its arcane energy vanes, and at the direction of the royal capital.

The chief runesmith smiled faintly. "So there is indeed an acquaintance."

With that, she took her leave of Tire and turned toward the mechanical ship moored not far off.

Tire blinked, as though she had sensed a subtle shift of emotion in the runesmith at that instant—yet, still unfamiliar with humans, she could not say what that shift was. She could only shake her head, stretch, and prepare to turn over once more before the sun went down.

Today, however, she was destined not to sleep in.

A hurried patter of footsteps came from nearby, clearly headed her way. Tire lifted her eyelids and saw a young woman in a black uniform running toward her.

It was Qiong, the constable of the dockside district—said to have a younger brother working in the factories. Tire often came to the riverside to sunbathe, and so she knew this constable.

"Miss Tire!" The young constable came briskly up to the "shipping consultant" and gave a crisp salute. "A message has come from the government hall. You are requested to attend a council at once."

"Huh? Me?" Tire scratched her hair. "What for?"

"I'm not entirely sure myself... but Lady Hetty asked me to pass along a message, saying you would understand," the constable said earnestly. "'The meal is on the table. Time to eat.'"

"Time to eat? Why would that need the government hall..." Tire did not react at first—after all, she had been basking in the sun for nearly a whole day—but the next second she sprang to her feet. "Time to eat?! Right, I understand, I'm on my way!"

Before the words had left her mouth, the siren maiden had already burst into a cloud of water mist with a bang, shifted the next instant into her nimble sea-serpent form, and sped away.

Had no one seen it with their own eyes, none would believe a great worm could squirm along so fast...

...

In Silverhold, within Saint Sunil, Gao Yang had already established a connection with the Southern Region.

"Our elemental fold tower is ready. Now all we need is a guiding beacon," said the siren Tire, her expression grave, from the holographic projection cast by the arcanet terminal. "I need a relatively stable environment, preferably with a river or some other body of water nearby. I'll release the signal there to guide them in—and then you'll have to find a way to lure that 'deer' into the trap."

"...This is a very risky business."

Gao Yang furrowed his brow, his gaze drifting slowly across the map hanging on the wall nearby.

The sirens could cross the Endless Sea by some means called "elemental folding," but the process was accompanied by a very conspicuous concentration of energy. Even addled as it was, that giant deer would hardly wait around for the process to finish. So to guarantee the success of the "hunt," the trap had to be prepared in advance at another location, and the deer then lured into it by some means.

As he pondered, a plan gradually took shape in Gao Yang's mind.