Chapter 1417 — Plausibility Within the Siren Worldview

"It is indeed 'for now'—but 'for now' is enough," Gao Yang said with a smile, reaching out to press a hand on Amber's head. "I've said it before: the Alliance is a herd of porcupines huddling together for warmth. We never embraced one ideal out of saintly selflessness and justice—we were forced to choose unity in order to survive the winter. You can't expect any undertaking to go without problems forever—find a new way out before the problems spiral out of control, then wait for new problems on that new way out. That is how our civilization has groped its way forward, bit by bit."

"...You have a point," Amber said, vigorously shoving Gao Yang's hand off her head. "If the Alliance really could preserve its order forever, then we probably wouldn't have needed this 'Alliance' at all from the start."

In the night, the sound of footsteps suddenly came from not far off. Gao Yang and Amber stopped talking and turned together toward the source—they saw Tyr, maintaining her human form, appear on the deck, and, like a corpse-driver, with six shadow clones trailing behind her...

"Good evening!" Tyr, six clones in tow, strolled leisurely up to Gao Yang. She looked to be in quite a good mood, and had for once stayed lucid at this hour. Breathing in the cool night air, this "Plenipotentiary Envoy of the Deep Sea" drew a deep breath. "The air is really lovely—I hear the air quality in this place used to be dreadful. One breath and you'd get consumption..."

"You say that as if you have lungs," Gao Yang said. His expression had turned a little strange the moment he caught sight of Tyr, and now his gaze could not help but fall on the crowd of dull-faced clones behind her. "You brought the whole bunch along... Tell me, what were you thinking, splitting off an entire diplomatic corps from yourself? What's the point of that?"

"It's about looking imposing, isn't it!" Tyr said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "We sirens are a powerful nation, after all—how could our first appearance at an Alliance conference be just one lone representative showing up by herself? If the delegates who don't know any better saw that, they'd think the Deep Sea Kingdom had fallen so low it couldn't even send a proper delegation..."

Gao Yang's mouth twitched. He thought to himself that it would have been better if she truly couldn't send anyone—that siren queen really was bold, daring to make Tyr her plenipotentiary ambassador. With this one's fondness for wild whims, a single stunt she pulled at the Alliance would be enough to keep the sirens' publicity and foreign affairs departments busy covering for her for half a year... Though, did the sirens even have publicity and foreign affairs departments?

At that thought, Gao Yang asked in passing, "Do you sirens have a publicity and foreign affairs department?"

Tyr immediately planted her hands on her hips and answered with perfect righteousness: "Nope."

Gao Yang: "...?"

Even Amber beside him was startled. "Hold on—you don't have a foreign affairs department at all?! And then your queen just had a sudden whim, gave you the title of plenipotentiary ambassador, and sent you to join the mystic covenant on behalf of the Deep Sea Kingdom? Doesn't something about that strike you as wrong?"

"Of course we don't have one," Tyr said, even more self-assured than before. "The last time we dealt with a land civilization was I don't know how many tens of thousands of years ago. Why would we set up a foreign affairs department for no reason? To chat with the fish in the sea? But we could establish one now, I suppose—after all, we're in the mystic covenant now..."

"...Don't you also deal with the local water elementals and the like?" Gao Yang said, looking at this "sole diplomatic personnel of the Deep Sea Kingdom in tens of thousands of years" as though he had seen a ghost. "You even fight wars, and after the wars you make peace and all that—at the very least both sides would need diplomats to meet, wouldn't they..."

"The water elementals on the other side don't have diplomats either. Who ever heard of the elemental world having a foreign affairs department?"

Tyr went on, hands still on her hips: "When we deal with them, we usually start by fighting from the elemental rift, battle our way through all the way to the Boundless Sea, and somewhere along the way we come to understand each other. Then Gulu-lu will bring the troublemaking elemental lords to our queen to sue for surrender, and we indicate our acceptance. Of course, sometimes a siren will carelessly cross the peace boundary, or accidentally drain a water elemental who signed a peace treaty—and then the queen takes her people over to apologize..."

At this she paused to think, and a rather puzzled look came over her. "But for some reason, every time an elemental lord sees the queen coming with her sisters to apologize, they get terribly agitated—shouting 'don't come over here' while running off and vanishing..."

Gao Yang: "..."

"You elemental creatures really are... a lawless bunch," even Amber, whose own way of thinking was always eccentric, could not help but press a hand to her forehead. "But the way you explain it, it actually sounds like there's no problem at all... If that's the case, then the sirens really are the first elemental race in history to conduct diplomacy with 'ordinary races.' Does that mean the Alliance has successfully broken into the elemental realm?"

"That's your 'in history,'" Tyr said with a laugh. "In our history, the sirens have dealt with land races quite a lot—though that was all very, very long ago."

"Those land civilizations that once established diplomatic relations with you..." Gao Yang began instinctively, but he soon shook his head. "Never mind. We'd best not discuss that subject."

"Yes, we'd best not discuss it—but if the chance comes in the future, we sirens would very much welcome you to visit Antawyn as our guest, and to tour the ancient relics we keep in the Abyssal Vault," Tyr said with a smile to Gao Yang. "You are a very... peculiar human. The way you understand this world seems to me not even human at all, but rather like some kind of... 'long-lived one,' akin to us or the dragons. You may be able to understand certain things we have been through."

"Then I'll look forward to it," Gao Yang said with a smile. Then he glanced again behind Tyr, and could not help his curiosity. "By the way, it's rare to see you maintain a human form for so long. Is it because keeping a human form makes it easier to communicate with the delegates during the conference?"

"No," Tyr said, waving a hand carelessly at the six shadow clones behind her. "I just cut off my tail and made these six things out of it..."

Gao Yang: "...You can do that?!"

"Actually, just cutting off the tail wasn't enough—I also drew some water from the nearby clouds," Tyr explained earnestly. "The reason I needed water from my main body is that it makes the split bodies easier to control, but my main body doesn't have enough water, so I had to draw moisture from the surrounding environment—we sirens have always been a very reasonable race..."

Gao Yang: "..."

He suddenly found himself quite unable to look the word "reasonable" in the eye.

Fortunately, this increasingly bizarre topic did not continue. Just as Tyr was about to go on explaining to Gao Yang and Amber what constituted "rationality within the siren worldview," a pleasant humming sound suddenly reached their ears, and an "interaction device" mounted at the edge of the deck began to flash with a rhythmic light.

Gao Yang looked toward the silvery-white metal cylinder and saw the projection crystal at its top rise from its recess. Then the Main Brain's voice reached his ears: "Incoming communication request from the underground fortress of the Deep Blue Well—Ophelia Norton wishes to speak with you."

Gao Yang unconsciously rubbed the space between his brows—today really was turning out to be a busy day.