Deep Sea Intelligence

Inside a special guest room in Cecil Palace.

The furnishings in this guest room were highly unusual. There was no normal bed or bedding; in the place where the bed should have been stood a large pool, half-sunken into the center of the room. Beside the pool sat a large wooden barrel filled with fine white granules. Only around this strange pool and barrel were there ordinary tables, chairs, furniture, and daily necessities.

The bizarre layout gave the impression that someone had built a swimming pool inside a bedroom.

Betty, dressed in a black-and-white maid's uniform, stood beside the pool. She held a long-handled wooden ladle, scooping white granules from the barrel beside her and sprinkling them into the pool as she carefully stirred.

Suddenly, strange ripples spread across the water. The ripples rapidly grew, as though wind and waves had abruptly arisen in the windless room. Layer upon layer of waves rolled across the pool, and amid a continuous splashing, the churning water gradually gathered together, slowly forming a female body in the middle of the pool, with a bewitching serpent tail and long blue hair.

Betty maintained her grip on the long-handled ladle, blinking as she watched the figure emerge from the pool. Only after the other woman had fully solidified did she let out a small cry, then bow deeply. "Good afternoon, Miss Tir!"

Having successfully revived, Tir propped herself up with her tail and raised her upper body from the water. "Little Betty! Is Gawain here?"

"Master... ah, His Majesty is in the study," Betty said after thinking for a moment, correcting her form of address with belated awareness. "There are no guests over there right now."

"Oh, good. I need to see him—you carry on, I'm off!"

As she spoke rapidly, Tir climbed out of