The sun shone brightly, a gentle breeze rustled by, and Fairy Lake glittered with rippling light. The beautiful Mermaid Princess leaped high from the water, her vivid tail refracting golden radiance beneath the sun. And in her hand, she was holding a fishing line...
Lin Xue, the others, and I stood motionless by the lake like stone statues. I still had a death grip on my fishing rod. This sturdy thing made of Interstellar Alloy had not even bent after hauling Isana up. Isana's gaze followed the fishing line in her hand to the rod, then from the rod to my hand, and she immediately let out a startled cry. "Ah!"
Splash!
Water sprayed everywhere. Isana had actually let go of the line herself, and her whole body—her whole fish... her whole mermaid self—fell back into the water. A little of the splashing water hit my face, snapping me out of my daze.
"Holy crap! Isana! What are you doing here?!" I threw down my fishing rod in shock and stared, face twisted, at the Mermaid Princess floating in the water with only her little head exposed.
All right, this lady did not usually show up much, so everyone might be a little unfamiliar with her. But once I reminded you, you would remember: she was from Azeroth World, one of the Savior Army's generals, the mage leader of the Naga Clan, and physically speaking... a mermaid.
Like the vast majority of Azeroth officers in the Savior Army who held important military posts but were not critical leaders within their own clans, Isana normally lived in Shadow City—specifically, in her people's residential area. The Naga Clan district was the most unusual place in Shadow City. It was not a cluster of buildings, but an enormous saltwater lake. Isana herself had